During my sophomore year at AU, my roommate Erin, a veteran do-gooder, informed me that we would be going to the synagogue down the street to get blood tests. A little girl who was a member of the congregation had leukemia and her family was searching for potential bone marrow matches.
Neither of us nor any of our friends were matches but, as a result, we were placed on the registry of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). I promptly lost my donor card and forgot about the whole thing. After all, the chances of ever being a match are quite slim.
Cut to this summer. I was typing away at my internship when my cell phone rang. It was a woman named Sarah who works at the National Institute of Health.
"It looks like you're a potential match for a 32-year-old man with acute myelogenous leukemia," she said. "Are you still interested in donating your bone marrow?"
This was basically the last type of phone call I expected to receive, and I was caught off guard. At the same time, though, I immediately experienced this nagging sensation that I would be the match.
The next step was to have further blood testing to confirm whether or not I was the best match. Sarah told me I would hear back from the NMDP soon, either way. After two and a half weeks went by without word, I felt disappointed, but a bit relieved as well.
Then, while on vacation in Vermont with my family, Sarah called me back:
"Congratulations! You're the best match, and the recipient has requested a marrow donation!"
So much for having an idyllic weekend in the mountains. I launched into an intense discussion with my parents, grandparents and brother about what this would mean, when it would happen, how it would affect my schedule for the fall semester and whether I should go through with it at all.
Let me backtrack a little.
Once a donor is found for a seriously ill patient, the patient will undergo an intense round of chemotherapy that destroys his or her affected bone marrow. A donation from the healthy person who matches their type helps them recover from this treatment. Without the donation, it is likely that the patient will die.
"Each year, more than 30,000 people are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases for which a marrow or blood stem cell transplant may offer the only chance for a cure," according to www.marrow.org, the NMDP's official site.
There are more than 5 million potential donors registered worldwide, making it more likely than ever for a patient to find a match. However, some struggle to find a match because of rare tissue types. Matches are usually between people with similar ethnic backgrounds. As a result, the NMDP is trying to recruit more minorities to register because it is more difficult to find matches for those patients.
To harvest marrow, doctors make small cuts on a patient's back and insert long needles into the back of the pelvic bone, making various punctures. A syringe is then attached to the needles and a mixture of blood and marrow is drawn from the pelvic bone. The marrow is processed and delivered to the recipient through a blood transfusion. Incredibly, the bone marrow cells somehow "know" how to travel to the recipient's bones.
OK. So the procedure didn't sound comfortable, but it wasn't brain surgery. I learned that I would be placed under general anesthesia, and would probably experience soreness and stiffness for a while after the donation. I wondered if I could have a bad reaction to the anesthesia.
"Anything can happen," my father said comfortingly. "You can die!" (In reality, that is extremely rare.)
The more I understood the experience, the clearer it became that I would agree to donate. As of now, the procedure is scheduled for late September. The recipient and I must remain anonymous to each other for at least a year; after that, we can contact each other.
People's reactions to this have been pretty amusing. My parents, naturally, are frantic that I'm going to miss classes. Some friends have asked, "Are you insane? I've heard that hurts like hell."
"Am I going to have to take care of you?" my roommate Ellen wondered. My friend Josh told me, "You'll pretty much never have to do another good thing for the rest of your life."
This certainly isn't something I set out to do; it feels like it just fell in my lap and, to be honest, I'm really nervous about it. But knowing my bone marrow can help save someone's life is incredibly powerful, and impossible to turn down.
For more information on registering to become a potential donor, visit www.marrow.org.
This is the first in a three-part series on the experience of donating bone marrow.
PART TWO:
Sept. 27, Operation Day in Fairfax, Va.
