Roman Soldier
The relationship between Rome and Hibernia is a mystery. While some evidence suggests Romans traded with the Irish, other historians claim the Roman artifacts found in Ireland were solely the result of Irish raids on Roman controlled Britain. Saint Patrick himself (Maewyn Succat), the son of a Welsh-Roman nobleman, was captured by an Irish raiding party and brought back to Ireland as a slave.
Centuries earlier, the Roman Military Governor, Agricola, planned an assault on Ireland, but decided against it. Maybe after fighting the Iceni and Scottish Picts (who both battled in the nude) convinced Agricola the Celts were crazy motherfu*&ers -- more trouble than they were worth.
On April 9th, 2011, I was hooked up to an IV in the City of Hope Cancer Donor Center in Altadena, CA.
I was told I’d be there for twelve hours. Five hours in, I wished I’d taken up the nurse on his suggestion I pee before I started. My blood was being pumped through a centrifuge while my white blood cells and stem cells were extracted and stored in what looked like a fancy zip-lock bag. Halfway through, I’d produced less than half a pint of a milky substance that would create an entirely new blood and immune system for a dying man halfway across the world.
I got there because of Mia Hamm. She hosted a charity soccer game my team, Hollywood United, participated in. Mia’s brother died of cancer years earlier and ever since she's been on a mission to expand the bone marrow registry. There was no donor for her brother. It turns out, only twenty-five percent of all cancer patients who could be helped by bone marrow transplants find matches within their own families.
My friend, Brian Dunseth, had already told me about BeTheMatch.com. He became involved in the bone marrow registry drive when a Real Salt Lake teammate, Andy Williams', wife, had leukemia. I got a collection kit, swabbed my cheek, and popped it in the mail.
A year and a half later, I hit a rough patch. My FX show “Terriers” was canceled. I figured I’d had my fair share of TV series chances and exceeded my Hollywood quota. I felt like a failure. But I have a Class A Commercial Driver’s License and started a small trucking company with Bud and Cathy Williams (by small I mean we had ONE ’95 Peterbilt.) If I had to drive truck, I had to drive truck. Work is work and all work is honorable.
I won't pretend I’m a great truck driver and while I might place in the bottom thirty percent in a blind-side-backing-into-a-tight-space-in-a-crowded-truck-stop competition, I’m sure I’m one of very few active Screen Actors Guild members who can do it.
I ran some loads with Bud (to allow Cathy to run the shop and tend to her horses). It’s thrilling to see America from behind the wheel of Peterbilt. I didn’t forget about acting, I just didn’t want to sit on a couch hoping my phone would ring.
I received some good Hollywood news that a project I was passionate about (and had been working on for years) found a home. My joy was quickly squashed when I was cut from the deal. It happens in Hollywood, not as much as you might think, but it happens (every so often I’m reminded why it’s called show-biz and not show-friendship- not an original line, btw.) Not ten minutes after being told the producers were squeezing me out, I received an email from BeTheMatch saying I might be a potential DNA match to a guy in Europe who was dying of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
I looked to the Heavens. God was smacking me in the face. He was reminding me not to care so much about work bullshit, and focus on what we’re really here for -- to be of service to others.
It was a gift.
I’ve confused my plans and God’s plans for years, especially in regards to Hollywood. In 1992, my friend Bob Lowry suggested I volunteer for Project Angelfood, an organization (run out of the kitchen of the Methodist church at Fountain and Fairfax) that delivered meals to home-bound AIDS patients.
At the time, I was juggling my Angelfood runs with auditions for a movie starring Meryl Streep. I left my seventh and final call back for the Streep flick and ran by Fountain and Fairfax to pick up the day’s meals. Some of the guys I delivered food to lived in squalor. I could see them languishing in a hospital bed in the far corner of some room while hustlers squatted around their TV, watching porn and shooting dope. When I delivered the food, sometimes the scumbags would start to eat it right in front of me. Passing containers to the other jackals in the room. Registered complaints didn't mean shit. There was nothing I could do about it.
Other clients on the route told me their illness made them appreciate life more. One such guy, an artist I’ll call Bill, lived in a tidy bungalow near Los Feliz. He was always pleasant and busied himself drawing portraits of old Hollywood stars. On that particular day, knowing nothing more about me than I was the guy who dropped off his meals, Bill said, “Hold on, sunshine. I have a little present for you.”
He disappeared into his pad and returned with a framed sketch covered in gauze. He waited for me to unwrap it. Inside was a charcoal sketch of Meryl Streep. I knew immediately what it meant. God was rewarding me for my good deeds by letting me know I got the part and was going to be working with Meryl Streep.
Later that afternoon, I got a call from my agent telling me that the part had gone to a John C. Reilly.
I called Bob Lowry to tell him about my state of spiritual confusion. He said, “Listen you superstitious, Irish Catholic. I will say this once: God does not care about Hollywood casting decisions!” I had to laugh. And to be brutally honest, John C. Reilly (a friend) is a fantastic actor and a much better choice for the role than I would’ve been.
As the weeks went on, my contact with BeTheMatch ramped up. The good folks at the City of Hope wanted me to come out and do further blood tests and answer questionnaires. Around the same time, I was offered a one-shot, guest spot on the TV Series, “House.” Needing the work (and being a huge fan of Hugh Laurie), I said yes.
Between takes at the “House” set on the Fox Lot (in which my character was in a hospital bed, dying of cancer), I was contacted by someone at City of Hope saying I was a fantastic match and they needed one more blood sample from me. But they had to have it that day. I explained my situation and a woman came from Altadena and drew blood from me on the set. When I explained what was going on, one of the producers remarked his wife had been alive for the last twenty years as the result of a bone marrow transplant from a non-family member.
The results came back. It was a ten out of ten. They'd rarely seen a match so close. This guy in Europe, whoever he was, was my genetic, blood twin. I went by City of Hope for a final round of interviews and was asked if this something I wanted to go forward with.
“Of course,” I said. “When you swab your cheek, isn’t it implicit this is what you're doing it for?”
The woman said yes, but they'd run into situations where they started the stem cell donation practice, the cancer patient had begun a final round of chemo that would ultimately kill them, when the donor, because of family pressure, religious reasons, whatnot, backed out, leaving the patient to die.
“That’s horrible.” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
“It happens. We had one case where a man backed out the day before donating to a six-year-old. Heart-breaking.”
“Well that’s not me,” I said. “I feel lucky I matched someone.”
That was true. Many people have been on donor lists for over a decade without coming close to matching someone. My story was relatively unique.
“Maybe it's because of my Irish blood,” I said. “My parents, their parents, my great-grandparents and their great-grandparents are all from Ireland. Is he Irish?”
The woman couldn’t tell me. All she could say is that he was from Europe, “But, no,” she added, “he’s not from Ireland.”
I was confused. I said part of the thrill of doing this was the prospect of getting to know the person I was donating to. She said they’d run into problems in the past where people had held suffering families hostage over bone marrow and stem cells. “Imagine,” she said, “if a wealthy German Industrialist’s son was dying and you were their only hope of survival. There have been instances where people demanded huge sums of money to go through with the process. It’s for everyone’s protection, including yours.”
She told me if the transfusion was a success, after a year passed, and if both parties agreed to it, our identities would be revealed to the other.
I was still curious, however, about who my blood twin was. I knew my red-hair and freckles probably came from Vikings invading Ireland in the 10th Century. “Is he Scandanavian?”
She laughed. “Don’t be nosey,” she said, and left the room. And then I did something horrible. Something I’m ashamed of. I glanced at the open folder and saw an incredibly Italian name written next to “Milan, Italy.”
When she returned, we set the date for the procedure. It was Saturday, April 9th. Eight days before the procedure, the recipient was to begin a process of irradiation that would kill him by the 10th if he didn’t receive my stem cells. On April 4th, five days before the procedure, I was to start a daily regimen of Neupogen injections that would raise my white blood cell count from 5,000 to 50,000 or 60,000. We shook on the selected date and she told me that there was no going back.
Driving back to my apartment, I thought about this mystery man in Milan. I imagined his mother and grandmother. My friend, Gilles, is half-Italian and used to model in Milan, so I already planned a trip in my mind for the two of us in April of 2012 when I could meet the mystery man’s family. I imagined his mother would cook for us and we would bond over tea or coffee. I was on a high.
Heidegger wrote: “We pursue that which retreats from us.” I had spiritually retreated and Hollywood pursued. Days after I agreed to the procedure, I got offered multiple, high-profile projects that all started the week prior to April 9.
I agreed to do a project for Marc Cherry and ABC called “Hallelujah” with Terry O’Quinn and Jesse Martin. The producers were sympathetic to what I was doing with City of Hope, and promised I wouldn’t have to work late the night of the 8th before the stem-cell harvest.
That week, I gave myself Neupogen injections in my trailer. I promised my bosses they wouldn’t affect me in any way, but I was wrong. All I can say is I now understand why when you have a terrible flu it feels like someone’s taken a bat to your body. Inside your bones, your body goes into overdrive creating white blood cells. It certainly wasn’t anything like the guy-I-wasn’t-supposed-to-know-about-in-Italy was going through, but it hurt. There were times I'd have spasms shooting a scene, blow takes, and have to apologize to my co-workers.
That Friday night, I left work and drove to a hotel in Altadena near the hospital. The next morning I was picked up by a City of Hope employee and driven to the hospital. My Hollywood United friends Gilles and Jason Mathot came to keep me company during the procedure and other than the need to pee, it was painless. I returned to work on Monday and immediately started an on set drive to get as many people signed up for BeTheMatch as possible.
As I’d been shown many times, the ways of Hollywood are not aligned with the greater plans of the universe. “Hallelujah” was not picked up to series. It was still an interesting experience. I went back to the hustle of juggling our growing trucking business and chasing roles. But I was excited that back in Italy, my blood twin was getting better.
On the day of the harvest, it was explained to me that the bag of stem cells would be flown immediately after the procedure and put into the waiting patient. This is where the genius of humanity and science blows me away. My peripheral stem cells would find their way into the man’s bones, where they'd create new white and red blood cells -- essentially building him an entirely new blood and immune system. That someone figured that out blows me away. When people casually write online about how stupid scientists are (usually in regards to questions of climate change) I imagine them sitting at a machine, typing vitriol, pressing send, and waiting smugly for it to bounce off a satellite circling the earth as it’s sent all over the world to ANYONE who wants to see it- IMMEDIATELY. Yeah, scientists are stupid.
I was told the first month after the transplant was the trickiest when the patient’s immune system was highly compromised. I breathed a sigh of relief after the first four weeks passed and I received word the mystery man was doing well. The months passed and I continued my hustle. At four months, and then at six, I got more encouraging news.
I was also invited to participate in Mia Hamm’s Celebrity Soccer Challenge being held that year in Washington, DC. The game was a blast. I got to play with Kobe Bryant, members of the US Women’s Soccer Team (like Alex Morgan), Tony Reali, guys who played for Barcelona, Mia and her husband, Nomar Garciaparra. As a fan of soccer and the Red Sox, it was a dream come true.
At half-time, Mia explained to the crowd what the bone marrow registry was all about. She shared about her brother and introduced a young cancer survivor who was meeting her donor for the first time. There were tears all around. And then, to my surprise, she called me out on the pitch. She introduced me as someone who’d been exposed to her initiative through her Celebrity Soccer Match in 2009 and here, two years later, I was not only a match, but had saved someone’s life. Everyone had been very cool with me prior to that, but after the announcement, the other participants became immediately interested in my story. I had a long chat with Kobe Bryant, who turned out to be a really cool, down to earth guy. My career stuff back in LA wasn’t going so hot, but it didn’t matter— I was part of something much bigger.
I returned to LA on a high and got back to playing soccer with my Hollywood United buddies. I was alright.
At seven months, I received an email telling me that though he struggled bravely, my donee had passed away. His parents wanted to thank me for giving their son additional time to spend with them.
I was GUTTED. I guess the best way to try and explain how I felt was that I was defective in some way. There was something about my blood, the very essence of my being, that was not strong enough or good enough to do what the procedure had done for so many thousands before me— saved someone’s life. The people at City of Hope were kind and supportive, they explained these things unfortunately happened, but I still felt lower than I'd ever felt before. I felt like a fraud. I thought of the self-aggrandizing experience of being introduced as a “life-saver,” the narcissism of it all.
I stayed in touch with City of Hope (and would do a transplant again in a heartbeat if asked,) but I'm still haunted by this man’s passing. I would never have my trip to Milan to meet him.
I'd been to Milan in the summer of '77 when I was eleven and saw Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. For the better part of 2011, I held a private fantasy that I'd see it again. With my blood twin.
A couple of years later at a BeTheMatch fundraiser at the City of Hope, a woman offered to run my DNA results by a geneticist who would analyze my genetic background. When I got the results, I wasn’t surprised to see Ireland, but what shocked me were traces of Tunisian and Saudi Arabian genes.
I asked a scientist friend to look at the results and asked how it could be possible my genetic blood twin was a man from Northern Italy who was from a family that was many generations Italian.
“Most likely," she said, "your common ancestor was a Roman soldier.”
