superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

• 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.
• Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.
• Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.
• Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.
• 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!
• Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

• My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.
• Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.
• Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

Happy New Year!! (Taken with Instagram at Östads Säteri)

themattsmith:

sonsonandson:

Retired Philly Police Captain Ray Lewis arrested at #OWS this morning participating in civil disobedience.

Photo by Lauren Thorpe

Now that’s a damn powerful image.

(via motherjones)

French people (Taken with Instagram at Mezzanine)

Do this. 

superamit:

azizisbored:

BECOME A BONE MARROW DONOR PEOPLE. 

I posted about this a few weeks ago and just wanted to update.  

Amit Gupta has acute leukemia. He needs a bone marrow donor to survive. Unfortunately, South Asians are really unrepresented and his chance of finding a match are low. So I’m encouraging all of you (in particular brown folks) to join the registry. All you do is swab your cheek with the q-tip looking things (as seen above) and send it in. It takes 3 minutes and it can save someone’s life.

Click here to get a kit and swab your cheek. 

Amit needs your kit BEFORE November 30th. Seriously, just click and do this. You get a kit in the mail, swab your cheek with some q-tips, and put it in the mail. Done. Couldn’t be easier. If you know any brown people, harass them to do this. Be racist if you need to. (Ok don’t be racist, but encourage them to do it.)

For more info go to: www.amitguptaneedsyou.com.

You should always do everything celebrities tell you to do. Always.

Discovered this on Tumblr - this is where I used to bike/swim sometimes as a kid  :) 

theworldwelivein:

Autumn reflection | Floda, Vastra Gotaland, Sweden
© mackelundberg

jamesnord:

Lower East Side, 7:30AM

thingsiatethatilove:

“All this time, I’d been regarding my single life as a temporary interlude, one I had to make the most of—or swiftly terminate, depending on my mood. Without intending to, by actively rejecting our pop-culture depictions of the single woman—you know the ones—I’d been terrorizing myself with their specters. But now that 35 had come and gone, and with yet another relationship up in flames, all bets were off. It might never happen. Or maybe not until 42. Or 70, for that matter. Was that so bad? If I stopped seeing my present life as provisional, perhaps I’d be a little … happier. Perhaps I could actually get down to the business of what it means to be a real single woman.”

Kate Bolick, All The Single Ladies, must-read.

(hyperlink metacommentary mine not hers, of course. Of the many broken-clock-right-twice-a-day things SATC nailed, Being On A Magazine Cover Is Inevitably Weird might be my favorite).

(Source: emilygould)

Bye Evan! (Taken with instagram)

My friend Kristin is going to show her Chinese students how to use the real uncensored internet. People like her are making this world a little better every day.