I cant even begin to explain how many blogs I have stumbled upon about young children and adults who are in need of bone marrow...I really had no idea that anyone (as long as you meet the medical criteria) can potentially donate marrow and possibly save a human life...I realized this when I started reading a blog about a family finally finding a match for their two year old daughter who has leukemia...and how excited they were to have found someone who could potential give their daughter a second chance at life!
I feel so blessed to have happy and healthy children...and I feel so blessed that my husband and I are both healthy...health is truly a gift that most of us take for granted...Now, I picture in my mind if the tables were turned...and someone in my immediate family was so ill that they needed a bone marrow transplant due to cancer or some other disease...and their life was in the hands of matching bone marrow donors (if an immediate family member was not a match). The desperation and fear would be unexplainable and I would pray and pray and pray that the doctors could find a match. The way doctors find these matches is through the National Marrow Donor Program...or "Be The Match" registry www.marrow.org
Iam currently waiting on my registration kit...where I will take swabs of cells from the cheeks of my mouth...and send it in to the registry. They will tissue type the sample and then put those results onto the national registry...Now, I may be contacted tomorrow, in a few years or never...it all depends on if someone out there is a match to my tissue type.
Why blog about this? Because I encourage you to do the same...visit the site...they have a ton of information and FAQs about the whole process...and if that is not enough...google bone marrow donor stories...you will find stories from people who have gone through this from start to finish...all of these stories are very inspirational...and you will find that some donors even communicate with the recipients and some have even met them in person.
So what happens if I would be a potential match? Well, I would be put with a bone marrow donor manager who would help me through the whole process...I would attend a very informative meeting where any questions can be asked...If I were to still be onboard...I would be put through a bunch of testing...including xrays, scans, a physical and many blood tests...all in hopes of being labeled the "perfect match." If things still look good...then the recipients doctor would determine if the marrow needed to be extracted through the actual bone or through a 4 hour iv blood procedure. Through all the research I have done...I have come to the conclusion that the whole process is relatively painless...but really...why would we care about the pain when someone out there is dying and you could potentially help save their life? Why wouldnt you do this?!
Such a great post. I've been on the registry since college where there was a big bone marrow "drive" because one of the professors needed a transplant. But last week, my grandma was diagnosed with a type of bone marrow cancer so this is all fresh in my head. Unfortunately, she's too old to have a transplant, but I still encourage EVERYONE To get on the registry!
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