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A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
No reason I can't use this blog to do some good, right? And this is a damn easy way to do good.
Hi,I'm a 1st year medical student at Yale writing on behalf of my friend Natasha Collins, and I'm hoping you might post to your blog about her. She is a leukemia survivor and an incredible young woman. She has relapsed and is currently in need of a bone marrow transplant. I'm attaching a picture from her birthday party this year, right around the time she went back into treatment.
Please consider joining the National Bone Marrow Donor Program. All it takes is a few minutes--you just swab your cheek and mail the sample in. If you are ever called upon to donate, it's a simple and fairly painless process, much like donating blood. (Donating bone marrow used to be very painful and surgical, but it is generally done as a simple outpatient procedure now that the technology has evolved. However, if you are concerned please check out the website!). It's much harder to match bone marrow than blood, so if you are a match for someone, you may literally be the only person who could save their life.
Our friend Natasha is half black and half white, which makes her bone marrow especially difficult to match. A match for her is likely to also be of mixed heritage, and minority and mixed heritage donors are underrepresented in the registry. ***There is currently no match in the national registry for her***, so our best hope is someone like yourself who is willing to get typed and sign up. These grassroots drives do actually work--people have found matches because friends and family mobilized and contacted everyone they can think of.
Please encourage friends and family, especially of minority background, to register to the NBMDP. They could be Natasha's match and save her life. Please please please forward this note to anyone you can think of.
Register Online
Go to www.marrow.org
Click Join in person
Use the code BK041309 (0 = zero) (THIS WAIVES THE 52$ FEE IF YOU USE IT BETWEEN 4/24-4/30!)Register in Person
http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Join_in_Person/Recruitment_Groups/rec_group.pl#CTFind a Drive Near You
http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Join_in_Person/index.htmlJoin Natasha's Facebook Support Group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=65568844747&ref=nf
COMMENTS (9)
This is something that I literally just looked up last light in response to a TV ad. Now this post. God is telling me something and I am signing up now.
Thanks.
Posted by: scott | April 17, 2009 12:34 PM
They had a drive going on in the lobby when I was heading to class, so I signed up. Took maybe 10 minutes, most of which was filling out forms. No poking involved at all, and I still got free candy.
Posted by: Drew Miller | April 17, 2009 12:36 PM
I don't see where on the Join In Person page I specify the code. Is it something I provide when I drive down there?
Posted by: Observer | April 17, 2009 12:42 PM
Disregard - it is buried selecting the option to register online, and the code is not yet active. Normally $52 is no big deal but with both my S.O. and I laid off right now I'll wait.
Posted by: Observer | April 17, 2009 12:45 PM
you can also kill (save?) two birds with one stone and register while giving blood. I think the cost was waived when I did that several year ago.
Posted by: ThomasEn | April 17, 2009 1:27 PM
I guess I don't understand. So in addition to saving a life and overcoming inertia to go through the process of signing up with this service, they would ordinarily expect the DONOR to pay 52 dollars?
It seems like that really changes the balance of factors in the drive. It's easy to convince someone to give blood, since it only costs them time and the ability to focus for the next 24 hours. I realize that analyzing the samples must be expensive, but introducing a hefty fee seems like a pretty good way to get healthy young people who don't have any money to not volunteer.
Posted by: ACLS | April 17, 2009 4:24 PM
Apparently it does cost (though I guess their donations defray that cost, so if you are one of the backgrounds that is especially needed and cost is keeping you away I'd check with them to see if they want your sample anyway), though also make sure to check the medical eligibility before you send it the money and sample. I would not have guessed that I am ineligible, but I am.
Posted by: Rachel | April 17, 2009 4:48 PM
Yes, the program costs because it is underfunded. It's exactly the kind of program that in a more sane country would be fully funded by the government. Sigh.
My friend, Louie, died of leukemia while waiting for matching donor to appear. On the other hand, I've met people whose lives were saved by bone-marrow transplants. So this is really, really important stuff.
Thank you, Ezra, for going out of your way to post this.
Posted by: DN | April 18, 2009 3:55 PM
Natasha is a good friend of mine. She has such a bright future ahead of her and is surrounded by people who love her, but she is just one out of thousands of people per day searching for a needle in a haystack at a chance for life. I have faith that she will find a match because of the generosity of good folks in the world. A doctor once told me that when a potential donor in the Registry finds out that he/she is a match for a cancer patient, it's like winning the lottery. Winning the lottery to be the only person capable of saving that patient. Or at least this will be the case until the registry grows with more registrants. Yes, 52 dollars is a lot, but there is nothing we can do about it - if some rich dude wants to donate a million dollars to help cancer patients, then oh boy! But until then, I hope that people who can afford 52 dollars will do it for the thousands of patients who are currently hoping for life. Feel free to email Tasha at matchnatash@gmail.com. Thanks for posting this.
Posted by: Jing | April 23, 2009 1:51 PM