February 22, 2010 11:35 PM

From tears to TV star!

This morning's funeral was a tearfilled, heartbreaking affair for me. The lady who passed away from leukemia on Friday was exactly that - a lady! What a wonderful person she was. And this was only underlined by the wonderful words that one of her sons and his wife had to say about her. If we could all be remembered in the fashion that she was remembered - we would have no problems in this world.

After the funeral, I made a couple of DVD's of my speech yesterday. Actually, it was my speechES as both the 8:00 and 10:30 services were recorded. I made sure that my friend from Norway(Janne) got a copy.

Then it was on to our TV interview for our local channel 9 ABC TV affiliate. It really wasn't as much an interview as it was a time to retell my story. The interviewer(local newscaster Jennifer Vaughn) only asked a few open ended questions which justed revved up the engines and got you going. It was a very unassuming entrance as she arrived in an unmarked vehicle with just a cameraman. She kind of starts with a lot of small talk that I sure is just to calm your nerves somewhat. Both Janne and I were admittedly a little on edge about this as neither of us had ever been interviewed for television before. Then I was done first with Janne being second. They did not want a joint interview. It lasted for about an hour.

It's amazing, though I do not consider myself to be the very talkative type, I did kind of ramble on when given the opportunity. The focus of the interview was more on how important it is to get your name onto the bone marrow registry, that there are truly very successful stories(my story), and it's exceedingly rewarding for the donor(Janne's story). How can you place a value on a life? And how would you think of yourself after having donated your bone marrow to save the life of another?

In any case, Jennifer walked away with a copy of my talk from yesterday, a video of my 10:30 perfomance, my approval to use any part of this blog for whatever purposes she deems ncessary, and a couple of pictures of my stay in the hospital. It will take a few weeks to digest all of that and then they will air it at some time. When they do, it will also be made available on their web site so that everyone of you will have immediate access to it should you ever be in the need for a good laugh!

Lastly, we ended this day of up and down emotions by going out to dinner with friends who are now calling me a TV celebrity. I can only hope that all this fame goes to my head! I tell you, it didn't shorten the wait for us at the restaurant nor did it get us any free drinks or anything - I'm not sure what all this new found celebrity status is really good for!

Thus ended a reall good day...

Bob