Public Service Announcement

 

So last night I did my couple of cleaning/purging items that I had pre-chosen during the day.  The junk drawer, the cabinet under the junk drawer and my tool/paint cabinet.

 

As I was saying to my mom last night, it's a far bit different cleaning to move than it is cleaning just to tidy up.  Things that over the last 11 years I have picked up out of that junk drawer and then put back are too  many to count... Maybe it's that the those times I wasn't ready to let items go, or maybe it's because your thought process for cleaning when it comes to moving is less emotional and more practical.  It's no secret that I'm an incredibly emotional person... Case in point, GreenMonkey.

I found GreenMonkey hidden in the top of the lockers that I sold on Sunday.  I won him playing boardwalk games in Disneyland... I was all by myself for an hour or so and decided to fool around... and I won GreenMonkey.  He has velcro on his hands, so I attached him around my carrypack and took him on all the rides with me for the rest of the trip.  He got flung into the back of the lockers at some point and I forgot all about him.  Until Sunday when I put him in with the garage sale stuff and carted him off to my mom's.  Only when we were going through the boxes so I could show her what I brought, I decided I didn't want to let him go so I stuffed him down the front of my shirt... and then took him out and flung him in the box... and then removed him from the box... and then handed him to my mom... and then ripped him out of her hands in the same second...

I realized in that instant that I had come to the end of my ability to cope with so much change and decided that GreenMonkey could hang out with me in my car until I felt a bit better.  Two friends have been in the car since and interacted with GreenMonkey... my explaination that he's only there temporarily and 'helping' me get through this change was well received... until I suggested yesterday that I knit him a sweater...

 

Anyway, that's my point... I'm emotionally driven and attach value to things that others may not... It's a damn wonder that I"m not a redzone hoarder!

 

In the midst of all of this change, I stumbled across a post on my favorite website asking for people to sign up for OneMatch, which is the former 'Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registery (UBMDR).  I used to donate blood all the time and then I became severely anemic and I tried a couple times but was turned down.  The OneMatch registery is very easy to sign up for... You fill out a questionairre online and then if you're eligible, they send you a mouth swab kit and you swab, send it back and done... then you just wait for the call (if you ever get one) stating that you're a match.

 

I would encourage everyone I know to sign up for this... bone marrow surgery (which is only one of the ways they get stem cells) is a reasonably uncomfortable endeavor (take a couple days off work and a few advil) but dying because you can't find a match would be worse... seeing your family member suffer or die because of some one chose not to do something as simple as register is unimaginable!

 

For Canadians, you want to go to www.onematch.ca

For Americans, you want to go to http://www.abmdr.org/home0.aspx

For the UK, you want to go to http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/

 

For anywhere else, if you are having trouble finding your registry, let me know and I will help you.

 

Please.  One simple act could save a life.  As Canadian Blood Services says: 'It's in you to give'.