( music playing )
Welcome back.
Let's give a Good Mythical welcome
to Chris Bettencourt and Dillon Hill.
- Hello. - Thanks for coming in, guys.
Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it.
Thank you guys.
Now, guys, you're here
because, Chris, it was on your bucket list
to be on Good Mythical Morning.
Yes, and it's an absolute honor to be here
and sitting next to you guys.
Never expected it to actually happen.
Well, it's really cool to be on somebody's bucket list
and to help them check it off.
Do you have the actual bucket?
It's on our website.
'Cause I never leave my bucket.
- Mine's smaller than Link's. - We actually need some.
Yeah, we need to make our own buckets, yeah,
to bring with us wherever we go.
But we were really excited to have Chris and Dillon on the show
because we wanted you to hear their story,
and I really think, over the course of the next few minutes
as we talk about this,
you can help really make a difference
in some people's life.
So let's get into it. Tell us your story.
Well, Dillon and I have been best friends from since the fourth grade.
Awesome.
Real long time for some people's standards.
And--
And, unfortunately in October of last year,
I was re-diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia.
And, unfortunately-- I've been going through it for a while,
but this time they told me it was medication resistant,
and I have a year to live
unless I find a bone marrow donor.
So right now I'm living my bucket list
and just trying to find a bone marrow donor,
trying to raise leukemia awareness,
and hopefully we can get a bone marrow donor
to help possibly save my life,
and if not, we're hoping to raise enough awareness
that we can at least save someone else's life
because that's something-- you know, that's big,
and it's bigger than just my life.
There's other people we can help and save,
then, yeah, I'm down to do it.
- Absolutely. - And that's where you Mythical beasts come in.
That's why we wanted to have these guys come on here
because you guys have an opportunity today
to help potentially save Chris's life
or somebody else's life.
Yeah, and before we get into the mechanics of it,
I just love the part of the story
about how the friendship continues
and how, in some ways--
I was going to say that maybe you put your life on pause
in terms of your college career.
- Yeah. - But maybe that's not the right way to put it.
Maybe it's the exact opposite.
It's a much bigger step.
Yeah, so Chris and I--
I was right there when he was first diagnosed in fifth grade.
And so we've kind of been through this before.
I joke, and every time he calls,
I'm not looking forward to that phone call
'cause he's called me quite a few times with bad news.
This time he called me
and told me that he has a year left to live,
and one thing he said was,
he's afraid of not being able to experience things.
And some of the examples he gave were
really basic things
that I was planning on doing soon,
like maybe getting married
or buying a new car
or signing for a house,
just things that we plan on doing
but aren't there for him.
And then I just decided, you know what?
I have so much opportunity in my life.
Let me give some of that up.
I dropped out of college
and I asked him to come to me with a list of 50 things,
and some of those things we put on the list,
like be on "Good Mythical Morning,"
which we did not expect to happen.
That sounds crazy.
We weren't expecting that at all.
We have, like, Lift weights with The Rock,
but we also have...
Link:
- Dillon:
Dillon:
like the first thing we crossed off,
was to feed homeless people,
which is something you always hear about, but you never do,
- Link:
Help an old lady across the street.
That's-- you know, that's a joke.
A lot of people mentioned that of something they should do.
We have also some big things,
like Chris wants to get a new car.
He's had the same one. He wants to get a new bed.
Just it's the whole spectrum of what life is about
and now we're experiencing it together.
And you can see the whole list on your website.
At onelist.life,
there's ways to, besides bethematch.com--
they're a very big help--
but you can sign up on our website as well,
which redirects through Be The Match,
and we just try to make everything there,
our YouTube videos, our bucket list items.
Everything is there and hopeful easy to navigate.
And kind of the reason I wanted to start this
was, if Chris is going to pass,
I want to be able to remember him
and have a photo book,
and so we started the YouTube channel,
and now we have so many people supporting us,
and I have a document of who he is to me,
and experiencing life together.
- But you're-- - That's an amazing story.
But your passing is not a done deal.
- I mean-- - There's a chance.
There's a chance, yeah.
Well, we're gonna fi-- because--
- So explain that whole process. - We need to find a match.
Yeah, explain the process.
There's no one on Earth
that is currently in the Be The Match registry
that matches you well enough to save your life.
So the exercise is to find more people
to add to the registry
in order to save your life
or other people who are in the same position
or will be in the same position.
Yeah, it's-- you either get a call or you don't get a call.
They don't really let you know if you're getting close or not.
So, unfortunately I haven't got any calls,
and it's just really a waiting game right now
to hopefully find a match.
We're just hoping to raise this awareness,
like I said, and hopefully, you know,
I can get saved and keep living my life,
- but the bigger thing is... - Absolutely, man.
...is if it can save someone else as well...
The more people that sign up to be on the registry
that more people that can save Chris
and the more lives in general that are saved
because of, you know, just swabbing your cheek.
Right 'cause it's really a numbers game.
And this is what's fascinating to me,
is this isn't-- you may be like,
"Well, why don't you just get one of your family members to do it?"
Well, it's actually-- It's interesting, the way that it works.
It's actually more likely that somebody out there
who's a distant relative or somebody that you don't know
is going to be the exact match that you need.
And that's why it's almost--
it's usually coming from a stranger.
It could be like a-one-in-a-million chance.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
It varies from person to person
what their chances are.
So it's hard to say that specifically,
but it's certainly a worthwhile exercise.
And Link's gonna show us how easy
the process of adding yourself to the registry is.
So you go to bethematch.org,
and you get the swab guide sent to you,
I'm gonna do this right now.
"Buccal swab kit directions."
They should call it something better than "buccal"--
They should call it something fun, like "Mouth Swab Fun Kit."
Okay.
We'll put that request in.
Read that out loud and I'm gonna to it.
Okay, and I will just say, really quickly,
the only reason that I'm not doing this
that it has been recommended
that if you have chronic back issues, like I do--
- You're not a candidate. - I'm not a candidate for it.
But most everybody else is,
so we're talking, like, 95% or more of the population.
Great candidate for this.
And it's free.
I'm happy to do it.
I will say before I swab my cheek,
because that's what you're all waiting for.
"I can't wait to see him swab that cheek."
That's gonna be so much fun.
When I've heard
about bone marrow donorship,
I've heard about how incredibly painful it is.
And of course me being such a queasy wheezy,
I think I've put off even looking into it,
honestly, because of this fear I have
of how much it's gonna hurt. It's not a rational thing.
It's just something you always have a reason to do something else
besides sign up for the registry.
But that's a misconception.
But it is a misconception
because it's an outpatient procedure.
Well, let me go back.
If-- when you swab,
you send it in, you're part of the registry,
you may never be called,
but if you are a match,
you may be the only person on Earth
who can save somebody's life,
and then you have an opportunity
to then go, all expenses paid,
everything covered,
to donate your bone marrow,
and it's an outpatient procedure.
So over the course of less than an hour, right?
About 45 minutes.
...you're put under anesthesia,
they take bone marrow out of your hip bone,
and then for the next few weeks,
you just have a dull pain
in your back.
like somebody punched you just above the butt.
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, I feel like, for me,
I can't defend not swabbing my cheek
and joining the registry
if it's me feeling like I'm getting punched above the butt,
or saving a life.
- Right. - It seems-- you know, so...
It really is saving someone's life.
Yeah, it's no one with any of these blood conditions
can just decide, "Oh, I'm just going to go to the hospital and get saved."
It's literally reliant on someone else.
It's one of those few things out there medically-wise
that it's literally like,
I can't save my own life.
I need you.
And it's one of those rare things
that we need to bring more awareness to.
Maybe I'm your man.
- Hopefully. - Let's do this.
- That'd be great. - That'd be awesome.
Happy Mouth Fun Time Swabbing Time.
Yes!
- "Open the swab package." - Done.
- "Remove one swab." - Did.
"Two-- swallow."
Swallow? The swab?
- That's gonna frigging hurt. - No, no, no, you just swallow.
That's how they get the sample?
You swallow. Then--
Hold on. Hold on. I got to swallow.
'Cause you wanna get grimy--
You don't want them to be matching people with lamb tongue.
- You know what I'm saying? - Good point.
"This man has all the markings of a lamb..."
- "Tongue." - "Swallow.
Then brush the swab inside your cheek and along the gum line
for ten seconds."
- Count. - One,
two, three, four,
five, six, seven--
- This is fun! - ...eight, nine, ten.
Whoo! Happy fun swab time.
"Now wrap one barcode label around the stick,
farthest from the swab tip."
I've already did that.
"Like a flag. Four-- place the labeled stick
into the adhesive strip, as shown below."
That's on that, so... Give it.
Oh, the adhesive strip.
- And then-- - I had that. Sorry.
Got carried away with Happy Mouth Fun Times swab boys.
So I'm putting that here.
Bam.
And then it says, "Repeat the process one more time."
There you go.
And then if you have fast enough Internet connection,
you can now take my DNA
for your own replacatory purposes.
So I'm gonna hold that here really still,
so you can do that, to put it on your Internet connection.
- Rhett: Okay. - Link: Okay? There you go. Make more of me.
We're gonna continue to talk to these guys on "Good Mythical More"
and enjoy some food with them,
but we want to encourage you
all to go to bethematch.org.
( British accent ) Be the match.
You can get one of these kits.
You can potentially save somebody's life.
And this is the most Mythical thing that we could ask you to do.
This is the epitome of Mythicality,
is the ability to sacrifice yourself
for somebody else, and you know what?
It's not even that much of a sacrifice.
It's getting punched in the butt. That's all it takes.
So bethematch.org
and also mybestfriendslist.com,
these guys' website.
Thank you for liking, commenting, and subscribing.
You gotta say, "You know what time it is."
You know what time it is.
I'm Genevieve from Nanticoke, Pennsylvania,
and I'm here at Montage Mountain,
and it's time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality.
Click the bottom link
to watch this episode from the beginning.
There was a person leaning off the side of the ski lift to be out of the shot.
They didn't wanna be in there. Yeah.
It was Mom.
And click the top link to watch us and the crew
eat the lasagna pretzel
with Chris and Dillon in "Good Mythical More."
And to find out where the Wheel of Mythicality
is going to land.
Link:
please go to bethematch.org
and find out how you can join the donor registry
and help another friend.