DCistas -- If you're in the Fair Lakes area on Saturday, please consider stopping at California Tortilla for a bite to eat. They're holding a fundraiser at that location to help pay vet bills for a Friends of Homeless Animals cat named Blackbeard. Use the code word "Blackbeard," and drop your receipt into the box. 25% of your check goes to help pay the vet bills of a badly hurt animal, and the burritos are pretty good.

I won't be there (my surgery is Friday, and I'll be out of commission), but I've already told Hubs that he has to get us lunch from there.

Brother's tests have not revealed anything yet. Can I get some health-ma for him, and maybe some Dobler vibes cause he's making us nuts,and some House-ma for the doctors? Thanks.

My cousin's son has leukemia, and he needs a marrow transplant. She's asked everybody to repost this wherever we can, so I thought somebody here might want to sign up. They're especially looking for donors with Turkish ancestry, because this little boy's father is Turkish.

Dear all (please share and forward this note),

As most of you know, Luca – our 19 month-old son, was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia in early May. We’ve just learned that his first session of chemotherapy has not been successful and as we undergo his second session (with hopes of a better outcome) – our consultant has advised that we must start looking for a bone marrow donor for a possible transplant in September – about 10 weeks away.

Obviously, this is a heart-wrenching situation for us as a marrow transplant will be a life-saving measure and Luca is our life at the moment. And with that, we are making an appeal to all of our friends, family, neighbours, acquaintances to consider marrow donation. All the registries are connected – so location isn’t an issue. And if you need help finding or contacting a marrow organisation – we will be more than happy to help.

Being tested is simple. All it involves is using some swabs to gather some cells from inside your cheek and sending the kit back in. The kit is free, but donations are accepted. It takes 10 days to get the kit and then about 7 for them to receive it and then two weeks for the testing and matching to be done. We need to find a donor urgently!!!! You can NOT just be tested to match Luca - your information will be entered into the National registry so you have to option in the future - if you are a match - to save someone's life.

Marrow organisations:

UK: [link]

US: [link]

CH: [link]

FR: [link]

TR: [link]

I'll be nearly to entirely dark for the next two weeks. I'm having surgery to repair an inflamed disk in my neck, which is pressing on my spinal cord and causing problems in my left arm and hand.

I'll be back no later than 8/8!

I've been watching all the news on the Boston 3 day ( my walk is 7 weeks away in SF) send then a little ma~~~ the heat stopped the walk early and today it is thunderstorms

Hi friends. Those of you who are FB pals with me already know this, so I apologize for the repetition. I had emergency surgery yesterday for compartment syndrome. You will regret the images you see if you google that. I'm going to be laid-up in recovery at UNC med center for a few days. The procedure went pretty well, but I've permanently lost some of the motion in my right leg. The upside is that I didn't lose the use of my leg. So there's that. All in all, I have to caution those of you who may feel peer-pressured into developing a rare condition whilst on vacation with your family: just say no! Sure, the ambulance ride from Morehead City to Chapel Hill is supercool, as are the pain meds, but the horrible stabbing pain is a bit of a drag. And don't get me started on the wretched visions of early mortality! Good for laffs, definitely, but man, so very cliched. In summation, don't do what Johnny Don't does.

Help out DH by boosting TWOP traffic - vote in the Tubey awards!

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Interview~ma would be very much appreciated at 4 pm EDT today. It's a phone interview for a really great job for a really cool company, and I want to make it to the next round so I don't have to settle for the "meh" job. Thanks.

Hi everyone!!

Emeline and I are going to be in DC from August 13th - 18th. I would love to see as many people as possible. We can do dinner one evening or lunch or whatever. Come check out F2F thread and plan!!

Sneaking in momentarily. Surgery was a success. They kept me in the hospital overnight, no complications. Recovering slowly -- a little residual numbness, but that's normal and should go away before too long.

Releasing ~ma to Hayden and anyone else who needs it.