#nmdp

My bone marrow donation went really well!

Of course! My pleasure!!!

Donating bone marrow is really funky because bone marrow is what makes your immune system! Blood is made in The Bones, which feels wrong, but it's true. This includes your white blood cells and all of the other components that help you fight off infection. In individuals with blood cancers, often times their bone marrow IS the problem- it's creating mutated/cancerous blood cells.

So, your bone marrow is broken and producing cells that will kill you. And in response, humanity invented the most metal answer to this ever: nuking your bones until they're marrowless. And then taking someone else's bone marrow and swapping it in.

So basically, I just gave someone an entirely new immune system. Which is fucking awesome.

Answering your other questions beneath the cut so this doesn't get too long on everyone's dashboard!

NMDP, formerly the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match, is a nonprofit that holds a registry of potential donors of healthy bone marrow and blood stem cells, matches donors to patients, and organizes and facilitates the donation.

Why is this important?

Every year thousands of people are diagnosed with blood cancers, and often the only hope is a donation of healthy bone marrow or blood stem cells. This requires a much closer match than a blood transfusion. 70% of patients will not have a match for donation in their family, and will need to find one on the registry. Depending on the patient's ethnic background they may have as little as a 29% chance of finding a donor who is a good enough match on the registry. The only way to improve these odds is for more people to sign up and increase the number of potential donors on the registry.

How do I sign up?

Signing up is easy! If you are between 18 and 40 years old, you can visit their website and sign up. They will send you a cheek swab kit in the mail, you swab your cheeks, send it back, and that's it! You're now on the registry, and if they ever find you're a potential match for any patients, they'll contact you. If you need to travel for your donation, they'll cover any related expenses, meals, and your time off work.

Hello everyone!

Very recently a good friend of mine has become very sick and will likely need a bone marrow transplant. Please join me in joining the NMDP's registry to donate either peripheral blood stem cells or bone marrow!

It's super easy to fill out an online form and they'll send you cheek swabs to mail back and test to see what genetic markers you have! Optimal donors are between the ages of 18-35. There is no cost to donate!

If you're not able to join the registry, please help me spread the word! Let's help someone have a second chance at life!

Maybe it's a bit of a torture of his own creation within his own specific circumstances- but maybe the least overwhelming part of any medical trauma he might have is the part where he gets to help another person, rather than just medical testing for the sake of it.

And of course, he thinks of every receiving patient as Maria. It's just the way he's wired. Love persisting and all that.

Do you all remember episode 16 of season 2 of Knight Rider (1982)?

Do you remember how Michael fought to save a sick little girl? The girl needed a bone marrow donation, and there was only one match in the country that could give it to her- so Michael tracked him down and persuaded him to donate?

Turns out that Bone Marrow donation really works like that in real life! If you live in the U.S. and you needed bone marrow to save your life, there would only be 2-3 people with compatible enough marrow for the transfer. Most of the time, these people won't even be in your family.

After seeing "Race For Life", I signed up to be a bone marrow donor. All it took was a simple cheek swab.

And now, I'm going to help save someone's life.

My bone marrow was found, through the registry, to be compatible with a patient who has blood cancer. I'll get to donate my bone marrow to replace their mutated bone marrow, giving them a strong chance to be cancer-free.

The National Marrow Donor Program, or NMDP, is the organization that keeps track of potential bone marrow donors in the U.S. If you live in the U.S., you can join this registry to have the chance to be someone's match.

I cannot begin to express how privileged I feel to be able to give someone a second chance at life like this. It literally feels like something out of a Knight Rider episode and I couldn't be happier.

I would encourage everyone who sees this post to sign up to be a part of the donor registry. I'm not going to put a link in this post, because Tumblr tends to block posts with links from the main search, and I want as many people as possible to see this; but it's as easy as googling "NDMP" and going to their home website. If you aren't in the U.S. but still wish to join, I know there's many international organizations, and I hope you can find the one that services your country.

I've been struggling a lot with depression lately, and just like, general feelings of hopelessness and rage. In response to that, I've been kind of throwing myself randomly at any opportunity to do something good, from donating some of my bulk household products to charities to showing up at local Dem events to feeding stray cats.

One thing I randomly decided to do was to join the National Marrow Donor Program (formerly known as Be The Match). They send you a little cheek swab kit, and you send it back and it's tested and then you're on the registry for people in need of bone marrow transplants. And the cool thing is that now the marrow donation process is basically like donating plasma. You get your blood drawn, marrow is extracted, and then it gets put back in you via the other arm. You just sit there and watch a movie or two and you're done. That's it. That's all it takes to save someone's life.

If you would also like to join, here's the link:

And if you want to see the video that really pushed me to start this process (& if you also want to cry a little) then here it is: