Bone marrow matter of life and death

'Vote or you will spontaneously combust." Let me be the first to congratulate everyone who voted yesterday. I was expecting more fatalities at Penn this morning, lined up on Locust Walk like apathetic salami. If you do know someone who didn't get to the polls, don't fret. Sean "P. Diddy" Combs is currently developing ballot boxes to bury the undecided casualties.

If you happen to own a "Vote or Die" P. Diddy shirt, please gently place it in your closet this morning, next to your other outdated fad relics. You know, your flannel shirts from fifth grade, your secret pog collection and those Livestrong bracelets that everyone from Bill Clinton to that night waitress at the Philly Diner owns. The bracelet you wore for a couple days until everyone at Penn had one and then it became too-obvious chic.

The day I purchased my Livestrong bracelet, the trend stopped. Within seconds of my stretching the bracelet on over my fist, Penn collectively rubbed its chafed wrists and went back to bling, P. Diddy-style.

And yet, I continue to put my yellow band on each morning. My parents and my brothers, Steve and Mike, wear them too. You see, when I look down at my wrist, I think about July 31, 2001. It was my 17th birthday, two months before my senior year at Cherry Hill East and exactly a year before I was eligible to vote. It was also the day I got my driver's license.

I had parallel-parked perfectly, and I went home, feeling pretty damn good about my accomplishment. I dialed my mom's cell, and excitedly waited to tell her the news. One ring, two. "Mel," she said, her voice wilting. "Daddy has cancer."

My dad is 50. He enjoys the Flyers, collecting Mad Magazine and making corny jokes. He votes, thank goodness, so he didn't keel over yesterday. He used to dress up like Superman, complete with blue tights and a cape, and deliver candy to kids at Jefferson Hospital on Halloween. He came to my class every year in October and did an X-ray presentation. He loves the Big Five, especially Temple University. He was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on my 17th birthday.

Stage 3 means that the cancer was above and below his diaphragm but not in his bone marrow. He was lucky. Having cancer in your bone marrow is stage 4. If you don't match for a bone marrow transplant with a sibling or child, you have to look for a donor in the national registry. Seventy percent of people don't match with a family member. Unless they find a match in the database, they die.

Until my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I didn't think P. Diddy and I had much in common. He's a hipster rapper turned media whore from the Hamptons; I'm a jokester writer turned media whore from Cherry Hill, N.J. But recently, I've realized that P. Diddy and I share more than just our love of J. Lo. We both want young people to register, to get out into the community and to make a difference.

Not having potential bone marrow donors in the national database has graver consequences than not having everyone vote, despite what P. Diddy preaches. It really is a matter of life and death. And it is one registration that will be counted, regardless of political affiliation.

Considering the high level of voter registration at Penn, I was surprised that the bone marrow drive on campus was not very successful two weeks ago. When I went in to help out, only two people had donated, despite heavy Locust Walk publicity. I had assumed that Penn students would be more than willing to enter a database to potentially save someone's life. I was wrong.

Perhaps it's a lack of education about marrow donation. Thousands of people are diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle-cell anemia and other blood-related illnesses each year. If you match a patient, your bone marrow is transplanted into his body, replacing his unhealthy blood cells with healthy blood-forming ones. Though some people have reservations because of the possibility of pain, I think one or two days of feeling uncomfortable is tiny compared to the thrill of saving someone's life.

Minority registration is even more important. Black people are not well-represented in the national database. Since tissue type is inherited, patients are more likely to match someone of their own ethnicity. The rapper Nelly, a close associate of P. Diddy's, has recently started a campaign to register bone marrow donors in honor of his sister, who has leukemia. It is the largest effort to register black people in the country.

Because Penn is so diverse, and because we are all so eager to become civically responsible citizens, it would be wonderful if all students entered the bone marrow database when they registered to vote.

I know that everyone is sick and tired of the political campaigns this year. As I'm writing this, I don't know if the election has been decided yet, but I do know that the campaign is ongoing for cancer patients like my dad.

Perhaps a new P. Diddy T-shirt is needed. "Donate bone marrow and live strong."

Melody Joy Kramer is a junior English major from Cherry Hill, N.J. Perpendicular Harmony appears on Wednesdays.

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