Help Vinay & Sameer

The past few weeks have been spent continuing to enjoy the beauty of my family home on Mercer Island (near Seattle). The weather has been fantastic and the time with my parents and brother even more precious. (As my friend, Veer, points out to me: how often is it that, in your 30s, you get to spend an entire summer with your parents?!)

Reena has been doing the global gallop for the both of us - attending to her dad in NJ and running off to India to take care of our business operations there. (As a side note: you know how we’d been eagerly looking for someone to run our India ops? Well, we finally scored our dream candidate and he starts in a week! This takes a lot of pressure off of Reena and me and allows us to spend time in the US/EU markets growing the business.)

We’ve both had to be strong in this time apart - nearly a month - but we know that we’re doing the right thing given everything we’re juggling. Many people turn off the rest of their lives to deal with disease; we chose to continue being ourselves - let the disease try to keep up with us!! It’s been really helpful that I’ve been quite asymptomatic during this time. Sure, I’ve been getting tired from time to time. But it’s nothing that a quick nap can’t cure! My days have been absolutely packed with daily visits to the SCCA clinic and bi-weekly blood and platelet transfusions. On top of that, I have been working full-time to close a couple of monumental deals for our business (one down, one to go!). So by the time I’ve resigned myself to taking a nap, I’ve normally moved onto something more invigorating and motivating!

During my time at the clinic (5-6 hours per day), I’ve been interacting with a lot of doctors and nurses. Some of them say to me, “Hey, didn’t I see you on the news?”. Others are amazed when I tell them that my and Vinay’s crazy friends have registered over 23,000 people in a short two months.

However, I’ve noticed that I always have to follow this good news with bad: South Asians who have actually taken the trouble to register as donors only step up 30-40% of the time when called upon as a match.

Man, how very pathetic and shameful….I hope we can all reflect on that number for a second and realize how despicable it is. I literally have to mumble under my breath when mentioning our community’s failure in this area to my medical team. I simply find myself at a loss to explain this phenomenon to all the people who are otherwise so impressed at everything we have accomplished as a community. (Does this mean that our efforts have only registered 7-8,000 real donors since the other 15-16,000 will turn down the opportunity to save a life by refusing to essentially sit through a blood draw, something I do every other day?) I have to explain that a lot of Indian families will look at their kids/brothers/sisters and say, “Beta, why are you creating such a hassle and taking such a risk for someone we don’t even know?”

Our enemy here is part fear, part ignorance, and partly this remnant survivalist desi instinct where us Indians will only help our own flesh and blood. (It’s interesting that in this particular instance, someone is telling you that you ARE connected through flesh and blood - you are a DNA match for someone’s blood system! But let me not dwell on the irony of that.)

As for the other barriers to donor retention, we’ve hopefully made some progress in educating people through this campaign and are rapidly moving toward eradicating ignorance and its concomitant fear.

Whenever you or anyone you know is called upon as a donor and feels this fear, know that you’re not alone and that this feeling is not unnatural. We all have fears - for many of us the sight of needles, blood, or even the hospital causes an uncomfortable feeling in the pits of our stomachs. But when faced with that fear, know that your brother’s or sister’s life sits in the balance with your decision as to whether you can spare a few hours for what feels almost like a blood donation.

Can you even imagine the fear that most cancer patients must experience? You begin to realize the meaning of living life one day at a time. You understand that nothing is certain, not even the sun coming up tomorrow. You realize (if you are spiritual) that God is the only constant, the only certainty. If you can successfully come to all of these realizations, you can maybe eliminate most of your fears as a cancer patient.

As a donor, hopefully the path to being free of fear is a simpler one. Please think about this, discuss it with South Asians you know, and spread the word that life’s too short to live in fear - especially when you could instead live as a hero who saved a life! Tell them that I’m the patient and I’m not afraid - are you?