BackStory

Finding Felicity: A blog aiming to raise awareness for a patient’s autonomy specifically those patients suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia, debilitating cancer with personal significance and type 1 diabetes.

This site, albeit with a public health agenda, embraces the notion that raising awareness can be accomplished in tandem with any interesting writing, regardless of the topic. A Therapeutic Passage.  A cultural segue to more serious issues.

Thanks for sharing in our enlightenment!

In an effort to bring more awareness about bone marrow transplants (BMT) and donating blood. It began as a purely a happiness project but has morphed into something else. Now to spread it we’re passing on the thought by writing about happiness while also spreading some news about BMT.

~ Usually we’ll have a blog post featured by someone who has graciously consented to write about their happiness experiences. I’ve since begun to ask these lovely people to “tag” another person whom they think would consent to write about their happiness experiences. The hope is that slowly and surely we’ll spread a smile and take the jitters out of BMT, and empower people to know more about it and what we can do together to help others.

Those who do not have healthy bone marrow need you. Those who cannot manufacture their own blood need you. You literally do have it in you to give. Once you discover your bone marrow is compromised in any way you need a bone marrow donor. Scans are sent out to the national bone marrow bank. If you don’t have the correct bone marrow match; you die within 3 months. If a family member isn’t a match, you only have the bone marrow banks to save you. Bone Marrow Transplants (BMT) can save lives. You literally do have it in you to give! Please visit Blood.ca and please donate.

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In August 2011, I moved to Beijing, China to teach English, for such and such a company (there are so many). My intention was to live there for one year. I stayed for 3 years, working for the same company in various capacities. Travelled, saw amazing countries and experienced their wonderful cultural attributes. Met all the stereotypes of people along the way. Made awesome friends, lost my heart to one of them.

April, 2014 rolled around and I had just come back from Singapore, and then fly to Xi’an on a business trip. I opened my email while I was in my Hanting hotel room and found a special one from Maplewinds, the family email account. From my mother, describing edema in her legs, but that we shouldn’t worry, she just wanted to let us know.

Four days after reading that email. My younger sister called me to say we might need to go home; that our mom could be really sick.

“Nah,” I remember thinking. “This sh** doesn’t happen to my family. It just doesn’t.”

I know. I know. Everybody got their problems. World’s gotta spin, money’s got be made, blah blah…but this was real, this was happening. To me.

I know. You, whoever you are, don’t know me. Why should it matter to you? Simply because we all…all of us have someone going through a terminal sickness. We can all relate…so there’s that. And that’s all I got. But that’s a lot.

My mother was diagnosed with acute leukaemia, specifically acute myeloid leukeamia (AML). She wasn’t eating, or walking…that’s what cancer does to a body. And here’s the thing too, my older sister has type 1 diabetes, the advanced kind, as in she’s blind and she’s on dialysis. But my sister has had diabetes since she was 16, our family had accepted…it. My point? I thought I was immune to tough information. I thought, my heart was hard enough.

*But I’m human.

May 22nd, 2014, my younger sister and I flew home to Port Perry, Ontario, Canada.  She’s gone through the chemo, lost the hair, the weight…all that jazz.

But: mom WILL need a bone marrow transplant; none of the family members are a match, she’ll need to use the National Bone Marrow Bank to live.

So many people face this predicament and there is not enough awareness about BMT…so FindingFelicity is here to spread some.

And hopefully a smile along the way.

Us happy people gotta stick together.

~FindingFelicity