When most people travel, the last place they want to end up is in the hospital. For me, that's always where I'm headed.
About once a month, I volunteer as a courier for the National Marrow Donor Program, transporting life-saving bone marrow or stem cells to transplant patients around the world.
It's a joy to help, but it can also be exhausting. (Consider how much faster you would run to make a connecting flight if you were carrying much-needed blood instead of souvenirs.) My fiancee once joked that I wasn't happy if I wasn't on a train or plane once a week. During the past year, I have taken 14 courier trips in the United States and Europe, and accumulated thousands of frequent-flier miles.
While delivering hope and relief to leukemia and lymphoma patients, I've experienced new places, returned to some favorites and seen dear friends who have moved across the country.
I've also tracked down the best cheese steak in Philadelphia (Pat's King of Steaks); sampled everything from gelato to currywurst at the Rathausmarkt in Hamburg, and filled up on roasted Dungeness crabs at Thanh Long in San Francisco's Sunset District.
My trips are just one part of a program that maintains a registry of more than 5 million donors who have had their blood tested, cataloged and made available for matches. Each month, more than 300 patients find a match in the registry and receive a transplant.
But there are thousands more who search the registry and never find an eligible donor. Only two out of 10 patients get the transplant they need.
The deliveries I make are paid for with donations from people and foundations, public funding and recipients' health insurance. For privacy reasons, I never meet the people I help, and they don't know who I am either.
I began volunteering in 2002 when my aunt, who works for the Michigan Community Blood Centers in Grand Rapids, asked me to make a delivery to Dallas. I had just graduated from college and was a little nervous carrying such a critical package to a place I had never been. Despite my nerves, it went smoothly, and I even had some time after the delivery to enjoy the city and tour the Texas School Book Depository and John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza.
Planning for my trips usually begins when I receive an e-mail listing volunteer opportunities, including travel dates and destinations. They can range from a morning run to Philadelphia to a five-day trip overseas.
