Each New Year’s Eve for the past 15 years I have reflected on how fortunate I am. Of course I was very unlucky to have had leukemia, but boy was I blessed to have found a bone marrow donor. Not everyone is as fortunate.

I consider my illness something that was meant to be — a strange thing to say, I know, but then again it changed my life in a very positive way. Through my experience I have been given the opportunity to give back through the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. Since then, our volunteers, bone marrow donors and financial supporters have made nearly 2,200 transplants possible. This is a rare gift.

Despite so many adversities, I have a lot to be thankful for. I had an opportunity to share our life-saving mission a few weeks ago with the President and First Lady at the White House. It was a wonderful experience and a rare opportunity to share what we do. This year alone, our extraordinary bone marrow donors facilitated nearly 100 transplants for patients in need.

So as we say goodbye to 2010 and usher in 2011, please accept my very best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year. And please enjoy our Year in Review — a retrospective of selected activities from 2010.

Sincerely,
Jay

PS – Please enjoy this beautiful excerpt from an email message received from one of our donors – a real-life HERO!

Dearest friends and family,

As some of you know, I had the honor of donating stem cells to a 52-year-old woman with leukemia, which will enable her to build a fresh immune system and give her a second chance at fighting her disease and at life.

This journey started in 2006, where at a conference I had my cheek swabbed at a bone marrow drive for the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation www.giftoflife.org. If you haven’t heard of this organization I urge you to check it out. It was started by a an amazing guy Jay Feinberg (pretty much my age) when he was a teenager and was diagnosed with leukemia and none of his siblings were matches to become donors. Today, the organization has hundreds of thousands of possible donors in its data bank and has made thousands of life-saving matches.

But getting back to my story…..I’ve bounced around the past number of years with different addresses, phone numbers and e-mails, and apparently, Gift of Life had been trying to reach me. Very randomly, or not randomly at all (depending on the way you think about the world) a distant acquaintance on Facebook posted a link to vote for Jay Feinberg to win an award for his work. So I clicked, and along with the vote submitted my e-mail. The next day I got an e-mail letting me know I was a potential bone marrow match.

Throughout the process, I’ve had a great experience with Gift of Life, and if you’re not yet in the bone marrow registry I encourage you to visit their website www.giftoflife.org to get a mail in kit to do a cheek swab. If you signed up a long time ago I encourage you to contact them to make sure they have your updated info. Who knows there might be someone out there in need and you could be a match.