Everyone on the Inside Magic editorial staff is registered with the National Bone Marrow Registry and we urge you to do the same.
We were convinced it was the right thing to do when one of our loved ones was attacked by leukemia. The doctors can swat it away for a while but often it returns to further weaken and rob and finally kill. It was a bone marrow transplant that provided the best offense against the ugly cancer. An effective bone marrow transplant requires an essential matching of key traits between the donor and the recipient. Where there is a sufficient match, the doctors will give it a try. Where the marrow doesn’t match up, no attempt is made.
Considering that a bone marrow transplant is often the best, last hope for a patient, news of a match is received with great joy while word that no match can be found is devastating.
Even if a match is found, there is no guarantee the transplant will be successful, that the patient won’t succumb to the destruction of his or her own immune system — the necessary first step in the transplant process. Even if the patient survives until the transplant takes place, complications can still bring disaster.
But, the odds are always improved by increasing the number of potential marrow downers to consider.
Indiana magician Daniel Cullen directs a stage show titled “The Maze” described as “a mystery performance that features a unique brand of mentalism not seen in typical magic shows with a unique blend of illusion, intuition, psychology, humor, mystery and danger.” Mr. Cullen works with magicians Jim Munroe and Zak Mirzadeh to bring the production to college campuses to entertain and promote the cause of Be The Match — a national bone marrow donor registry.
“For the most part, Jim is the main performer of the show and it’s based around his experience with cancer,” Cullen told the Washington Times-Herald. “We work with Be The Match because of that. We’re the number one recruiters for Be the Match.
Mr. Munroe is a leukemia survivor — thanks to a bone marrow transplant — and a Christian. He shares his story and testimony through the show. When doctors found his biological sister did not match well enough to serve as a donor, Mr. Munroe checked the registry data base and found 16 potential matches out of 7,000,000 names. Of those 16, only one was right for him. Thankfully, that one person, a 19-year-old woman was willing to donate her marrow.
“I was literally dying a death and then they brought that bag of blood into the room,” he said. “The whole process was to get that new blood inside of me. Everyone was hoping my body would accept the new blood, and it did. And it slowly began to build a new immune system.”
Mr. Munroe is without cancer and filled with energy sufficient to write and promote his new book, The Charlatan: The Skeptical, Mysterious, Supernatural True Story of a Christian Magician.
The book is the “true story of a Christian magician.”
The shows are free but that does not mean they are free to produce, promote and perform. The team is working all year to raise funds and find organizations like Cru (née Campus Crusade for Christ) to sponsor appearances. If you would like to book the show, check out their web site and click the appropriately labeled button, “Book the Maze.”
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