In memoriam: Emru Townsend

[jaderabbit]

Technology and animation journalist/editor Emru Townsend died last night. Although he was lucky enough to get a bone marrow transplant for his Monosomy 7--and his site HealEmru.com has doubtlessly helped many others to get the marrow they need--his transplant did not cure the disease.

I knew Emru only a little bit, completely through e-mail. From

Comments

[cynodd]

I'm sorry to hear about Emru.

[jaderabbit]

Thank you. He was an excellent writer and a greatly beloved person.

[clair_de_lalune]

I'm sorry to hear about your acquaintance. Is he the same person you mentioned the other day as having gotten a bone marrow transplant, but not doing well?

[jaderabbit]

Thanks. Yes, that's the guy. Emru and his family worked hard to spread awareness and get more minority donors (he was of Afro-Caribbean ancestry), and they were very successful. They got a donor for him and who knows how many other people. But his bone marrow transplant didn't send him into remission. He was actually hoping for graft vs. host disease. It's so, so sad.

[clair_de_lalune]

--He was actually hoping for graft vs. host disease.--

Yeah...but he may be luckier that it didn't work out that way. I don't mean to sound insensitive - it's just that I've seen a lot of real misery with matched unrelated donor transplants and graft versus host disease. Maybe it's improved in the past 5-10 years, but I don't think, personally, I'd be willing to have one, even if it was certain death not to do so...

(I guess I should add that incompletely matched transplants are even worse, though.)

[jaderabbit]

I would not wish more pain on him. From what his sister said, it sounds like he had reconciled himself with life and death and was ready.

Yeah...my friend who needs a transplant has only a partial match right now. I really, really hope he gets an exact match.