Do you need my bone marrow?

On Tuesday I finally had my appointment to give blood to be typed for the Canadian Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry. This--joining the registry--is something that I've wanted to do for literally years. I can't even say exactly why, only that I've had this feeling that it's something I need to do. My only delay was that I didn't know how one goes about getting on the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry; I reminded myself every time that I had a doctor's appointment that I had to ask my doctor if he knew where I had to go, what I had to do, and forgot every single time.

Then, one dreary day in December, I suddenly realized, "What the hell? I have Google." And sure enough, about five seconds later, there was the Registry page in all its glory.

And joining was really the simplest thing. I read some information, took an online 10 question quiz to prove that I really had read the information, printed and filled out some forms and mailed them in. A few weeks later I had a call from Blood Services to make an appointment to give blood for typing, and I went. Easy. Done.

I had thought, from my reading of the pages that I'd been given to bring along to my appointment, that they were going to have to take seven vials of my blood. I wasn't particularly excited about that, but figured it wasn't a really big deal in the long run. But imagine my surprise when I discover that it wasn't 7 vials but 7 ml--a big difference! Seven milliliters required only two very small vials of my blood.

I still bought myself a raspberry hot chocolate to fortify me afterwards. You know. Because it was cold outside.

I know that I might never be called to donate--in fact, that's probably what will happen--but I'm there. Just in case. And who knows, maybe one day I can save someone's life. The least I can do is try.

Posted by Karina Sumner-Smith at 6:10 PM

2 Comments:

Way to go Karina!!

By  Unknown, at 7:57 PM  

That is a very cool thing...

-Jim

By  Anonymous, at 10:26 AM  

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