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Leukemia survivor bikes across Florida, stops at bone marrow transplant centers to bring hope

Starting Wednesday morning in Jacksonville, Bob Falkenberg will begin biking, but it's the stops along the way that are the biggest part of his journey.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — A 13-year leukemia survivor is now travelling the country to help others going through the same thing he survived. 

Starting Wednesday morning in Jacksonville, Bob Falkenberg will begin biking the length of Florida, but it's the stops along the way that are the biggest part of his journey. Falkenberg will be stopping at bone marrow transplant centers from Jacksonville to Key West.

His goal is to bring hope to patients that normal life can resume after treatment and to encourage people to join the National Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. 

"It was less than 50/50 getting through the whole process," Falkenberg said about his leukemia diagnosis in 2009.

Falkenberg was able to beat leukemia, thanks to a bone marrow donor.

"While I was in treatment, I just made a conscious decision," he said. "The only thing I was going to worry about was the things that were in my control."

Now in his control is where he goes on his bike. Falkenberg spoke with First Coat News over Zoom before he flew from Colorado to Jacksonville, where his cycling journey begins with Be The Match, an organization that connects patients with bone marrow donors.

"That is my number one priority is providing hope to patients that are going through this," Falkenberg said. "That when they get out the other side, they can have their life back."

His second goal is encouraging more donors. 

Only 30 percent of the time will a bone marrow match be in your family, according to the Institute for Justice.

Help is needed from more people of color. For instance, Black people have a 29 percent chance of finding a donor, according to Be The Match.

"We need more African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American donors to kind of even up the odds there of finding a match," Falkenberg said.

He says the process of giving bone marrow is now more like donating plasma.

"The donation itself, a lot of people think it's drilling into bones and things like that, it's not," Falkenberg said. "They sit in the chair, just like donating plasma, with a needle in each arm. Blood goes through a machine and separates out the stem cells."

Because someone else went through that process, Falkenberg is now pedaling on.

Learn how you can be the match for someone here.

Credit: Bob Faulkenberg

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