Day 92 - The day 272 lives could be saved!

Today was the day that Anna's School hosted a Bone Marrow drive in her honor. This was a day of pure joy for Anna, as she saw her entire community Rally just before her eyes. The turn out and support is something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Over 500 people came out to not only support her but to offer a gift to save her life.  Couple this with all of the generous donations that people extended to us for Anna's health care expenses leaves me kind of speechless. 

When a family member/ close friend or stranger offers to get thier cheek swabbed to see if they are a match to potentially save your step-daughters life.... it is overwhelming.  How do you even begin to start expressing your thanks?  This is the reason that this post is coming days after the event.  I do not know how to express my deepest thank you to all!  What makes it even more overwhelming for me is that I cannot get swabbed, I could potentially be a perfect match but since I have Multiple Sclerosis, I am not a viable potential candidate. :( Now a little a more bout the event.

The donor drive was from 10-2 Saturday February 1st.  At 9:35 there were already 15+ lining up ready to offer up their marrow! Anna's cheerleading buddies showed up to support by selling "Wilton Cheers for Anna" car magnets who raised over $1400! Another Young girl Alexa Steckel was there to support Anna with her Help Change Cancer cause. She raised over $400! Last a group of young ladies also sold hair bows at their "The Bow Flow" table selling over $150 of their bows for Anna.

Now half past 10am and the Cider Mill cafeteria was chock full of supporters filling out their forms prior to getting their swab on! There was a non stop flow like this until the end of the drive.  Parents, teachers, old friends we hadn't seen for over 20 + years, strangers who just want to help and so many more showed up.  in the midst of all of this Anna showed up at about 10:45 and she was smiling ear to ear.  Feeing quite like a celebrity for the day!  It was so amazing to see her there.  So So So happy, playing with her friends, running up and down the halls of her school, cheering with her cheer squad....just priceless.  It could not make this step parent any more happy than to see her like this.

Mean while hard at work was the Be The Match foundation, swabbing away.  It was pretty amazing that 2 representatives handles a crowd of hundreds!  While the support of the town was amazing, these 2 individuals from BeTheMatch were doing the deed of collecting life saving DNA.  It gives me chills just to think about it.

At 2:17 pm The counts were now in........272 donors now added to the Bone Marrow registry!!  Wow!!! Amazing, to think that in 4 hours we could have saved 272 lives...and hopefully one of those lives is Anna's  <3

THANK YOU WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH, but its a start.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Here is a link to the Good Morning Wilton story about the day.

Pretty girl with her cheer buds!

Heather getting her swab on!!!!