You never know...

[arib]

When I was seventeen, I signed up with the National Marrow Donor Program. They took a tube of blood. Aside from the occasional e-mail and postcard, I don't hear from them very much. About a year or so ago, I also signed up with The Caitlyn Raymond International Registry. They were having a sign-up drive near my office, and asked me to sign up

Comments

[mabfan]

Mazel tov on performing such an important mitzvah. And thank you for sharing the story with us.

[gnomi]

Yasher koach! And good on you for following through on something that your 17-year-old self got you into.

[aunt_becca]

yasher koach!
this is a topic very near and dear to my family. You are a mensch of the highest degree.

[pseydtonne]

Agreed about the highest-level mensch thing.

I never had the huevos to sign up for bone marrow donation. Someone mentioned that you can feel the hole-borer even when sedated and I was right out.

I recall at my college that they were intent on getting as many Asian students as possible. I never found out why, but their consistent appeal to the Asian communities verged on fetishism.

[arib]

The hole-borer is used less than twenty percent of the time now. Go ahead and get registered. :-)

[bluepapercup]

The Asian need is NOT fetishism. The south Asian community is VERY reluctant to donate outside their immediate circles and thus this creates a HUGE gap for patients in need and Asian patients do die because of the dearth of matches. It's quite a severe gap in the bone marrow donation program and I can understand why they were so eager to sign people up.

[mick_hale]

Kol Hakavod to you.

[bluepapercup]

This is so cool. Thank you for sharing the intimate details of this journey, and educating us on how we might register.

As I said before, I am proud of you for doing this, and look up to you for going through it with courage and equanimity.

If you ever feel like sharing in this forum the feelings you are processing, I would love to hear about them.

*hugs* Hope you're feeling great by now.

[bluepapercup]

Also, my old boss's life was saved by bone marrow donation so this is a cause close to my heart. He is an awesome guy and I'm very grateful some random person (like you!) helped him get a second chance at life.