A call to golfers: Celebrate Mothers Day by becoming a bone marrow donor

It has been nearly three years since I joined the WorldGolf.com team, and in that time we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, and I’ve been insulted in ways I never had imagine possible. But such is the life of a lowly golf blogger.

Today, however, this lowly golf blogger comes asking for help from the golf community. I am writing this post from City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, Calif. My Mom, already a survivor of Ovarian Cancer, has Acute Myleoid Leukemia.

But my Mom is one of the lucky ones. You see, recently, we learned that my Mom - through the amazing work of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) - has gotten a bone marrow donor. We don’t know who he is, except that he is a 48-year-old man who is willing to donate part of himself to save a woman he`ll likely never know. Based on this alone, he is a great man, indeed.

Tomorrow, my Mom will receive the bone marrow transplant that we believe and hope will save her life. Without the transplant, her life expectancy was about a year or so. With this transplant, there is the possibility that she will be cured, and her life expectancy should be five years, if not many years more.

While I understand this is not about golf, I share this with you because it’s about Mothers. You see, this week is the “Thanks Mom” Campaign held by the NMDP. The hope is to bring 46,000 people to the national Registry in just the two weeks surrounding Mother`s Day. For thousands of patients living with diseases like leukemia, finding a match on the Registry is their only chance of long-term survival.

The bone marrow registry currently has 10 million donors - worldwide. That my Mom was able to get a donor is akin to a miracle, such are the odds. The NMDP needs more people willing to join the registry, and right now they are signing people up for free or for rates much lower than the normal $52 (which pays for tissue typing).

Simply put, a bone marrow transplant is the difference between life and death for thousands and thousands of people a year. To be a donor requires little more than a swab inside the cheek. And if you are called upon to be a donor, all your medical bills will be paid for, and the procedure is akin a root canal. It’s not pleasant, so much, but it’s not hard either, and a day or two of soreness is all a donor will go through. To save a life.

If you need any information at all, check with the National Marrow Donor Program at Marrow.org.

If you want to donate, click here to find a donor drive near you.

And if you want to find out about the hard work the NMDP does and the people it affects, click hear to visit their Donor Garden, a beautiful site where kind and giving people come together to help those who truly need help.

My friends, I am currently stripped of all pretense. I am asking from my heart that you support the NMDP, whether through joining the registry or through giving some type of financial gift. The National Donor Program is an organization I am proud to be a part of. Because they are helping to save my mom’s life.

So this Mother’s Day, please give the gift of life to another mother. Because it’s a gift that gives to an entire family and so many more. Thank you all so much for any help you’re willing to give. And please feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

Bill Wolfrum