This is me posing with my soon-to-be new marrow on January 14th, 2015. They had been painstakingly extracted from my unbelievable donor who would remain anonymous for nearly two years and flown that day from Michigan to Minnesota to save my life. A 23 year old male interested in oncology at the cellular level and the health sciences in college joined the registry at a Be The Match table on campus where he was already donating blood. Two years after signing up, he got the call to be a donor and, with the support of his fiance (and now wife), went through the surgical excision of his marrow as requested by my doctor for a complete stranger. We have since been able to e-mail and talk, and we hope to meet up when I am able. I cannot explain what his gift has meant for me.
I had been admittedly apprehensive prior to the transplant as it is not something you can go back from. Once you have someone else’s immune system in your body, there is many a terrible, life-long and deadly thing that can happen to you should the that system attack any part of you as a foreign invader. But, when the IV bag of bone marrow arrived around 9:30 that night and it was placed up on the IV pole, before they started pumping it through, I was set suddenly at ease. I looked at the bag and knew, “we’re gonna be good friends.” And sure enough his marrow could not have been kinder to me since. I had no GVHD symptoms or complications during or since. In fact, I have not heard of an easier course with better recovery than my own. His marrow being the “cure best genotype” saved my life not just that day but everyday since by fending off any of my own leukemic cells that were somehow still lurking after my system had been obliterated. This is just part of high risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Essentially, some of my cells became resistant to his marrow in the same way that bacteria become resistance to antibacterial substances over a long period of time. There was only a 15% chance of this happening, and now that it has, one of the two best matches from the previous search who were not chosen last time received and accepted that call. That matched bone marrow transplant from someone on the Be The Match registry is truly my only option. The sacrifice is humbling and anyone who signs up is clearly a hero. The more people are on the registry, the more options patients like myself have to find their “cure-best match” as more research continues to come out regarding what that might include.
With the first diagnosis and this relapse, I have been asked if he or she could get checked to be a donor for me. For someone you know to be a match for you is practically impossible (it is only 1/4 chance even with a sibling), but that is OK, because joining the registry means you could find your match and save the life of anyone needing a bone marrow transplant throughout the country. The chances that you are a match for someone and will get chosen to donate is actually quite small as my donor pointed out in an e-mail. But it is these odds that make it so important to sign-up, especially minorities and young men. Me being a European mutt, as I understand it, gave me a plethora of options, but many, including children, have to continue searching and hoping while receiving additional rounds of high dose chemo in the meantime to stay in remission.
As far as age, we lose marrow as we get older so the younger the individual, the more marrow or stem cells they have to give. Also, I have learned that men tend to be chosen as any woman who has been pregnant is more likely to attack the patient (all those good antibodies to protect the baby gone rogue).
But, anyone 18-44 years of age can sign-up, and it is easier than you think!
Be The Match – Join the Registry
Step 1. Register On-line (Click the link above)
Step 2. They send you a packet so you can swab your cheek and send it back.
Step 3. That’s it! You could be a literal life-saver.
The greatest gift you could give me is putting the word out to friends and family and letting the young people in your life know how easy it is to sign-up and what it could mean for them and the person they are saving.
Additional bonus: a lot of bone marrow transplants are now done with stem cell donation that is similar to giving platelets (just takes about twice as long and does require a series of shots the week before to stimulate stem cell release to the bloodstream) and does not include surgery! (This peripheral stem cell transplant is what my next donor is being asked to do once I get into remission)
Additional, additional bonus: For those who are or will become pregnant (thereby much less likely to be chosen to donate marrow or their own stem cells), umbilical cord blood can be donated right after birth to be used for bone marrow transplant. It does not cost anything to donate cord blood as far as I know, and I know someone personally who had a double-cord bone marrow transplant that has saved his life.
Let’s save some lives, team!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart (that is pumping someone else’s blood) ❤
Placid Noise 