If you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you a story.
About two years ago, I graduated from college with a useless degree and absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I spent a while trying to find a job, but by the time Pizza Hut decided I was unfit to be a delivery boy, I was pretty much at the end of my rope.
Like most unemployed people, I spent a lot of time browsing Reddit. One night, I came across a post in /r/gaming from a guy named Dac, asking if anyone is interested in writing for a gaming site. It was charming, goofy, well-written, and altogether too good for me. But what the hell, right? This a dream job for a nerd like me. You gotta put yourself out there if you want to get noticed. So I threw my hat into the pile, not expecting much.
A few days later, I heard back. I got the job. I had no idea why or how, but I got it.
Over the next year and a half, I got to know Dac — David A. Croach, if you want to get all formal — pretty damn well. We worked together every day, went to a few big conventions together. Some days, we just went on long walks and talked about the future. (It was only about 90% as homoerotic as it sounds.) Sure, there were days when I wanted to kill him, but he was my boss. That comes with the territory. At the end of the day, I knew he was a great guy.
Around the time I'd decided to leave and write for Gameranx, Dac came to me with some pretty big news. He'd been offered a position at Reddit as the new community manager. Now, the one thing you should know about Dac is that he loves Reddit. Looooooves it. You do not want to stand between this man and karma, lest you lose a few limbs in the process. This was a humungous deal, as much a dream job for him as gameswriting was for me.
We were both moving onto greener pastures, and it felt amazing. It was like that moment at the end of an '80s sitcom where the whole family smiles and looks into the camera and it freeze frames. We've all learned some valuable lessons today, but the hard stuff's over. Everybody wins. Happily ever after.
A few weeks later, I heard from him again. He hadn't been feeling well, so he went to the doctor to see what was up. As it turns out, he had leukemia, and not one of the fun kinds, either. And there it was. 60 to 0 in three seconds flat.
Two months and three rounds of chemotherapy later, it looks like Dac's best shot is a perfect match bone marrow transplant. For those of you who might not know, that's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to find. It's a bit like winning the lottery, only you don't get any money, just a painful, life threatening procedure and a chance at getting better.
Look, I don't want to get all sappy here and and tell you about how Dac changed my life, but fact is, you don't get into a field like this unless someone takes a chance on you. Dac took that chance on me, and I owe him everything for that.
So that's it. That's my pitch. If you'd like to help, you can register with the National Bone Marrow Registry at BeTheMatch.com or head over to OneUpForDac.com for info on how to be tested specifically for Dac without being added to the registry. Even if you can't help him, registering could help save the life of one of the millions of other people currently looking for a transplant.
Thanks for listening.
