Pat Pedraja's Blog
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AUSTRALIA!
- Posted on 09.08.08
Wow, I can’t believe we are really here!! It has been a long and eventful trip but we made it! The plane ride seemed to go on forever and when we got here it was World Youth Day and 500.000 people are here to see the Pope. It took us 2 hours to reach the hotel because all the streets are blocked off.
Our first day here was great! We met up with Sally and Anthony from the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry and Julie from Mandarin Media. They had meetings for us planned all day with 3 patients ( 2 had transplants and 1 is waiting for a transplant). Our first visit was with a 4 year old and Im not sure I can tell you his name because of his privacy, so I won’t. He is getting a transplant in the next 2 weeks and they had a hard time finding him a donor because of his Sri Lankan ethnicity. His family did a great job promoting awareness within the Sri Lankan community and rallied alot of people to join the registry! It was fun to play with him and his sister and he even beat me at Chutes and Ladders (seriously, I tried my hardest to win and couldn’t). Next we met a 19 year old Macadonean girl who had Leukemia and got a transplant. She is doing well and has a really positive attitude. Same problem they had though, and it was hard to find a matching donor! Our last visit was with a 12 year old Vietnamese boy who is doing great after his transplant. We played soccer and his computer games, he likes the same games as me and Tuck! He made this DVD with a song and pictures from when he was sick in the hospital. It was to his friends at school talking about how he didn’t like being sick but they shouldn’t worry about him because he would soon be better. It almost made me cry and I asked his dad if I could have a copy!
We had dinner with Jane Ferguson and her son Seamus (who is filming video of us here) and her daughter Heidi, who I met with the Duchess on the Today Show in NY last year!
Did you know that food in Australia is called “Tucker”? and McDonalds is called “Mackers”? So we now say “Lets get Tucker at Mackers!”
Tomorrow I am going to the Sydney Swans, the Australia football team so I will tell you all about it!
Related causes: Health
