("replay post")
Friends, I’d like to suggest something:
Sign up for Be The Match as a possible Bone
Marrow Donor.
People who need marrow donation
(frequently leukemia patients) need a very close genetic match for the
transplant to be successful. If they do
not have a sibling or a good match from a parent, they may be out of luck.
Be The Match is a
registry where healthy people can give genetic information (from a simple Cheek
Swab kit they will send you) and then have that info entered into a searchable
database that doctors can look at to find a match for their patients. Since it’s hard to find close matches, they
need LOTS of volunteers to sign up so the database is large.
If you sign up, and if a patient
is found that needs you, the organization will contact you and set up the
donation. There are a couple of
different ways to extract the marrow, one easy, one a little less easy, but don’t
worry, you can handle it. While it’s a
situation that I do not talk about, I did it before myself. My sister eventually lost her battle, but one
bright spot was the success of the marrow transplant that was attempted.
So, sign up. You may never be called, but if you are, you
will be giving someone a chance that they simply would not have without YOU.
Do it.
-Mark
We lost my sister on 23-December-1983.
I don’t
write about her here, it's just too difficult.
Thirty-two
years may seem like a long time,
but sometimes,
it’s like yesterday.
Karen Lynn Laughlin
04-August-1960
23-December-1983
 |
Photo by Mark W. Laughlin
|
Yes, like yesterday.
ReplyDelete