Kiwanis Club of North Suburban Golden K St. Paul

With the room full and the most guests in a long time, John Sweeney decided that we should not do the “Harris stretch” today to avoid hitting any of our guests with our exuberance.

For circle three reports I noted that Vic Perman was home, but too weak to attend today’s meeting. Gordon Rose continues to have stomach problems and was not able to attend this week. Cliff Benson visited with Dick Bonde at Eagle Crest and found that Dick, at age 97, is doing well – even got in his wheel chair and took Cliff back to the main entrance to say goodbye – pretty good for 97! Ed Julian was also reported to be doing fine – lives in an apartment by a golf course

The happy dollars seemed to fly out of the wallets today – lots to be happy about from our members! John Sweeney put in his dollar because we had such a long list of visitors – two pages – most for a long time he noted. Lloyd (Korny) Kornmann was at Parkview getting ready for another year with the kids and he was walking down the hall with two teachers when a group of kids said hi to “Grandpa Korny” – not the teachers, mind you, but Korny. LaMar was at the fair with his wife, Patricia, when he got an e-mail announcing twin great grandchildren were born that day – brings his total of great grandkids to 18 – wow! Tom Benson was glad to be back after falling and breaking his nose – had it “glued” back together at regions hospital – yes glue – not even staples. Bruce Robb welcomed Ken Hanson back. Bill Flittie shared another Ole and Lena joke from his brother-in-law. Joe Kilpatrick spent two weeks in Florida with 4 ? year old grandkids – nice to be home – you can leave the grandkids behind. Ken Bergstedt shared a story about his three-year-old great grandson, Alexander – when his mother sent him to his room, he announced that it would not be necessary. Bill Campion indicated that he had two of his children living on the East coast and both are okay with no damage due to hurricane Irene. Gil Ward had to get a dollar from Steve Forshay because he bought some of Korny’s pie today. I added the final dollar myself in celebration of my new granddaughter, Diane, born on her mother’s birthday – August 26th.

The topic today for our presentation was bone marrow and umbilical cord stem cell transplantation. We got the story from three prospectives. Dr. Carroll Vance and his wife introduced the speaker. It turns out his wife was diagnosed with a form of cancer with no viable treatment other than a bone marrow transplant. It all lead to the National Marrow donor program and the outcome was amazing (about 75% survive one year after treatment – she is in year six). Dr. Jeffery W. Chell told us all about the registry and how it has grown over thirty years to be the world’s largest registry of volunteer donors with over 9 million donors listed and 500,000 added each year. The rest of the world only has 7 million donors.

Transplanted marrow (about a liter) from a donor is introduced into a patient’s bloodstream and the healthy cells introduced take the place of diseased cells and stick and grow more new healthy cells – if it works. They once thought that this therapy would only work on twins, but now they are sorting through the 10 billion genetic combinations to find genetic twins and have made great strides in improving outcomes – saving lives. He also explained a little about umbilical cord transplantation.

The next speaker was Christine Fleming of Be The Match foundation (new name) the organization that supports the National Marrow donor program and gets people involved in donating marrow. The foundation has four goals. First they try to grow and diversify all over the world. They raise funds for research. They provide patient assistance – there is an incredible amount of paperwork to match donors to patients, medical insurance issues and stress from the disease itself. They recently added umbilical cord blood projects to their growing list of donor projects. The bottom line seemed to be – through lots of stress there can be lots of joy. As part of the presentation, Ann Marie Forshay – Steve Forshay’s daughter described her experience being a donor and how she helped a 16-year-old girl in California. Donors and patients are matched all over the world – pretty amazing! And to think that it operates right out of Minnesota.

Next week the topic will be the central corridor light rail project. This is our first presentation for September and is our special guest meeting for that month – hope we get as many guests as we had today. As usual it should be educational and informative so bring a friend and join us next week - our social time is 1:30 - the meeting starts promptly at 2 PM.