In for a dime, in for a dollar. Save the Ta-Tas.

I did 16 miles today. My coach is still in Dayton OH so had to go it alone. :-( I went to Manayunk which is on the NW outskirts of the city of Philadelphia. Its history goes back to mid 1600's. The word Manayunk is a derivation of the Lenape ( or Delaware) Indian word for "river" or "where we get water". It was quite an industrial village at one time, known for textile mills when Philadelphia was a leader in garment production. Today is it uber-hip with bistros, boutiques, micro-breweries and hand made furniture shops. I was disappointed today to see a Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware since Manayunk had never had the typical chain stores.

On the way to Manayunk I passed the Philadelphia Art Museum. The "Rocky" steps and the Rocky statue were a sea of pink since this is day two of the Susan Komen Foundation 3 day walk. I was a purple speck in all that pink of Save the Ta-Tas people. Around the corner I saw a pond (vs sea) of orange for the Scolederma Foundation. Everyone had a beautiful fall day for their events. A couple of people called out to me to cheer me on about Team in Training noticing my TNT shirt. A car honked and waved at me. I am not sure if that was for TNT or making a statement about the Red Sox baseball cap I was wearing. I saw one fellow who had a Phillies cap, Eagles windbreaker, and Flyers jersey. We love our sports in the City of Brotherly Love.

What is the dime and dollar stuff? A few weeks ago my friend posted a comment on this blog, with a reference to my mission. Wow. That set me back on my heels. I didn't know I had a mission. Astronauts have missions. Mother Teresa had a mission. Even Al Gore has a mission. The Dominican nuns who drove from Lufkin to Nacogdoches every day to teach us at the poor, underresourced St. Ann's School had a mission. But I didn't think I had a mission. I am just a girl, doing my very small part. I was flattered at first that she would even think of this effort with that lofty word. OK. Then I got serious about examining my efforts. I've raised a little money. The endurance sport part of this is an effective gimmick to get you and me involved in a model of fund raising that has raised over $900 million since its inception in 1986. However, every step I take does nothing to help a person with leukemia. So, I decided it was time to REALLY get involved.

So, I am in for a dollar now. I just registered with the National Marrow Donor Registry. I've been reading about it as part of my research for this blog. The screening questions were not much more than one answers to donate blood, which I've done many times in my life. They are sending me a swab to get cells out of the inside of my check for matching. If I match somebody in need depends a lot on race and ethnicity. My mother was half Serbian and half Croatian. My father was a mix of Scot and Irish. So, my gene pool is highly common for a lot of people in the US. We knows that Celts went all over the place, even as far as Eastern Europe, including what is now Croatia by the 3rd Century BC.

When I talked to Joe about this, he wasn't initially too crazy about it, worried about risk. We talked to his son and DIL who are both physicians and they assured us that that there is really no risk for the donor. There are four types of bone marrow transplant. One can harvest one's own marrow in advance of needing it. I suppose that is uncommon. Another type uses blood stem cells from umbilical cords. The other two types are those I could potentially do. In the traditional type, under anesthesia, a doc takes a Big hollow needle and inserts it into the bone in the hip and withdraws bone marrow. Sounds like one's hip is sore and of course a general anthesthesia always has some small risk. This is still practiced. The most modern way is to the give the donor a stem cell growth factor med to increase the stem cells in the blood. Then the donor merely gives blood. That blood goes through a special treatment to filter out the stem cells which are then given to the patient. This form carries no more risk than giving blood at a Red Cross blood drive. If I am a match with a patient, I do not get to choose which form of harvesting will be used.....I am excited and nervous. I do not know the possibility of being called.

My honored hero today is my daddy, Curtis Oran Wallace. He died in April 1960 a month after I turned six years ago. His death impacted my family greatly as you can imagine. We love and miss him every day, even 49 years later. I see him and all his wonderful qualities in my brothers in a very profound way.

Things to be thankful for: a fully charged iPod loaded with ABBA songs from Mama Mia.

UnderArmour shirt on a cool Philly morning. All those people in pink today.