(Click on the above Movie Clapperboard icon to view Seun's video)
Seun Adebiyi is 26 years old, was born in Nigeria and has just graduated from Yale Law School in America. He was diagnosed with leukaemia in June of 2009, and is desperately searching for a matching donor for a bone marrow transplant.
He has been unable to find a match in the U.S. or other national registries, so he is hosting a bone marrow drive on Dec. 19th-20th in his home country, Nigeria.
Seun is remarkably also trying to make history as the first Nigerian delegate to compete in the Winter Olympics!
Seun has started a blog about living with cancer and his progress to compete at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Read below random excerpts taken from his blog:
To succeed I will have to beat the qualifying standards, as well as stem cell leukaemia, lymphoblastic lymphoma, anaemia, and possible infections. I’ll also have to find a donor for a bone marrow transplant. I started this blog to record my training/competition results, reactions to chemo, and other interesting experiences.
My new sport is easy to describe. First imagine the luge. Now flip over onto your stomach, and put your hands by your side. With no brakes and minimal steering, you careen precipitously down a bobsled track at nearly 80 mph. Headfirst.
Getting ready for my first skeleton run!
Seems like a random career for a lawyer, but there’s a good story behind it. I was a competitive swimmer for 16 years, represented Nigeria in international competitions, and even broke a couple national records. Then, I missed the 2004 Summer Games by a fraction of a second, but I never let go of my Olympic dream. Please click on the link to read more about Seun’s blog
Thank You!!
Where do I begin? I cannot begin to wrap my head around the outpouring of support to help me find a matching donor in the few weeks that I have left.
1. The bone marrow drive in Nigeria is a GO. It will start next week at my brother’s wedding. Then my mother, friends and family will continue the effort across the country over the next month. Thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers, my mother and I have plane tickets that we could not have afforded. Also visa/passport issues are being resolved with amazing speed – green lights all the way!!
2. The bone marrow drive in NYC is set for Sunday, January 10 at the Yale Club, which has donated its grand ballroom for the drive.
3. The volunteer kick-off meeting on Saturday Dec. 5 was fantastic. What an incredible team of volunteers we have in place! The creative energy in the room was electrifying. I am floored that all of these extremely busy people could make the time.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed time, energy, thoughts, prayers, airline miles, money, contacts. You each have changed my life and will continue to change the lives of others like myself. Daunting challenges remain, but I am very confident about the road ahead.
Gratefully,
Seun & Bimpe Adebiyi
27th November– Report Card
On August 1, as I was coming to grips with the possibility of dying young,I made a list of 50 Things I Want To Do.
It has been four months since that blog entry, so I’m now going to post a report card. I haven’t fulfilled many of the goals yet, but I know that I am making progress in learning how to live a fulfilled life.
Even though I spent seven of the last 16 weeks in a hospital, I have never known greater freedom of mind. My heart is unfettered. I allow myself to dream big.
Accomplished
1. Laugh really hard and act silly at least once a day. This one was a “freebie.” How could I do otherwise?
3. Learn to cry more easily. It’s still not easy to turn on the waterworks, but I no longer feel guilty for indulging in a good cry from time to time.
4. Smile at someone every day. This simple exercise probably has had the most benefit on my emotional health of any activity that I know.
5. Give someone a hug every day. It was tough with an IV port and tubes running out of my chest, but I did my best.
10. Study Hindu philosophy and meditation from an advanced Kriya yogi. I’m reading a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by a famous yogi named Paramahansa Yogananda.
19. Tell someone “I love you” every day.
20. Mend a broken relationship
21. Forgive anyone who asks. These days, I’m so filled with gratitude that it puzzles me whenever someone apologizes.
35. Lose 20 pounds of fat. Thanks to diuretics and IV fluids, I gained and lost forty pounds in the hospital. Yes it was water weight, but water is stored in fat cells, so technically… My law professors would be proud.
37. Improve my eating habits (it’s about making the effort!).
47. Wear funny-looking hats. I have a bald head and its winter, so I might as well accessorize!
50. Fall in love with someone who isn’t afraid to love me back. This one required a little thinking outside the box, but it was easy once I knew where to look.
******************************************************************************************************
Even if you are unable to attend the registration drive being organised in Nigeria for 19th-20th December you can still join a register in the UK.
Check our clinics section for dates of our next bone marrow recruitment clinics.
Please consider joining the bone marrow register to try and help Seun and the thousands of other people around the world searching for a match.
Please click on the link to read more about Seun’s blog
