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My friend Joshua Ragsdale, 36 needs a bone marrow transplant. If he does not get on he has 3 months to live. I would appreciate you taking the time to read this email and getting tested or resending it out. If I only had three months I would hope people would help me.

I apologize if you haven’t heard from me in years or if you’ve even forgotten who I am because it’s been so long since we talked but I am trying to help get the word out to people (my ENTIRE address book) because time is running out.

Thanks, Cassandra

I am not asking for money what Joshua needs is to find a donor. If you would like to try to see if you’re a match there

Are 2 ways to do it:

If you live in town you can come to Christ the King church on Belmont (info below)

Joshua Ragsdale Music Row Bone Marrow Drive

Location: Christ The King, Belmont Blvd Nashville, TN

Time: 9:00AM Monday, November 2^nd

Or you can send away for a kit to be tested. You swab your mouth mail the kit back and they will test to see if you are a donor (and you might not be for Josh but you might be for someone else! )

www.Marrow.org

This is a message from Joshua’s brother,

Please read it.

Are You a Match?

by John Ragsdale

As you know we are praying for a bone marrow match for my brother. The doctors have told Joshua that without a miracle from God or a bone marrow match things do not look good. We are praying & believing for a complete healing. However we are also adding works to our faith and asking everyone to get tested for a bone marrow match in case this is how God decides to take care of the situation

I have found that many folks are afraid of this process
mainly because they are misinformed. We have found an informed advocate in Ryan Thompson. He was the recipient of a bone marrow transplant that saved his life. He also had the same doctor that Joshua has now.

Here is an email that Ryan sent out to some folks
asking them to get tested. I have asked Ryan’s permission to use that email here. I hope it answers any questions that you may have:


I was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2002 and had a bone marrow transplant in 2004 that saved my life. Our Friend Emma Meyer has a friend named Joshua that was recently diagnosed with a late stage leukemia and he is in need of a bone marrow transplant. So far they have not been able to find him a donor match. I would like to pass on some information about how to get on the Bone Marrow registry and how much easier and less painful to be an actual donor it is these days. All you have to do is register at www.marrow.org and they will send you a home test kit. All that is required is a cheek saliva swab now instead of a blood test. You then send the kit back and you are registered to save a life!

As far as the actual donation process goes, it is also much easier than in the past. They used to take actual bone marrow from your hips and inject it into the person receiving the transplant. Now, the transplant only requires a blood transfusion type process where they harvest the stem cells from the donors blood. There is no recovery time necessary and there is little to no pain associated with being a donor. I hope that the you all can help raise awareness about how easy it is to become a donor and hopefully save some lives.

Thanks for your help, and God Bless!

Ryan Thompson


PLEASE post this and forward this to everyone you know! Also copy it and email it to anyone who may not be on Facebook!! This is URGENT!