Hilarious Taylor Swift ‘Bad Blood’ Parody Shines Light on Bone Marrow Donation
After a summer of video teasers, excessive exposure to Taylor Swift’s squad, and eventful VMA show, most of us are now familiar with Swift’s hit “Bad Blood.”
But Los Angeles-based Kevin McDevitt’s parody might have Swift beat (sorry, Taylor!). The story behind his video: good blood. Literally, it’s based on a bone marrow transplant he went through.
After years of feeling lethargic, McDevitt was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia and Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). Luckily for him, his sister Megan was a match.
“I knew something was wrong when I was getting very fatigued and even developing carpal tunnel like symptoms, “ McDevitt told Yahoo Health about his initial symptoms. “I chalked it up to working too much, i.e. ‘burnout.’ I took an entire week off to rest on my couch at one point, and I bounced back a little but not for long. My doctor thought it might be a stomach issue, as my blood test results at the time were normal. Later on, as my condition worsened, I had very large bruises that I had no explanation for. That is a sign of low platelets, which are one of the three categories of blood cells made by bone marrow.”
(Photo: Courtesy of Kevin McDevitt)
His fun video he made with his wife, and with cooperation of the hospital, brings attention to an important organization that matches people in need with donors, called Be The Match. The description of their Youtube video states “it only takes a few minutes, it’s not scary, and you could one day have the privilege of saying YOU SAVED SOMEONE’S LIFE. “
McDevitt continued saying, “My friend Shahonna (from the video) has been looking for a match for 20 years. The general population needs to be educated about this issue, and also know how EASY it is to become a registered donor. Spend 3-5 minutes on BeTheMatch.org’s form, then they mail you the swab, you swab, and mail it back. My video shows it in about 7 seconds — that’s how simple it is.” He said only 2 percent of the population is on the registry.
The video not only features McDevitt and his wife, but also patients he met through the video, who he said he was so proud of, and said they kept him focused on the project. “I loved loved loved the reaction from the team who cared for me at Cedars-Sinai. When I went in for my 6-month appointment, they were showing it to patients —one young girl who’d lost her hair from chemo was in total awe, starstruck, meeting Stephanie. That was a trip!”
But not all of his stories were happy. He also explained shocking experiences while in the hospital. “I’ve heard sad stories, of people who’ve had siblings refuse to donate, due to bad blood (groan). It’s a cold world sometimes, you definitely learn that at the transplant ward. But an organization like Be The Match represents hope for the many patients who aren’t lucky enough to have a sibling match.”
Although McDevitt isn’t working on any new music videos currently, he said if Taylor Swift gets the video to go viral by retweeting it, he would consider making some more. However he is writing “a sci-fi comedy in the vein of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I’ll take a copy of that when it’s done!
You can keep up with him at his blog, kevmcdev.com, which he followed up by saying “I know all this disease stuff sounds like the last thing everyone wants to spend their day reading about, but I promise my blog is spit-milk-out-your-nose hilarious.”
