Here's a situation where I'm pretty sure I can speak for the average person. If you're like me, you probably have always thought of bone marrow donation as something scary and heavily medicalized that involves drilling directly into your bones. Actually, it's not like that at all. Most donors undergo a procedure that's basically a blood donation. A few have bone marrow extracted from a hip bone, but they're sedated for the process and it's largely painless.
Getting into the registry is painless as well. It involves filling out a form and swabbing the inside of your cheek. Seriously, the hardest part about it is figuring out what ethnic group you belong to. (I went with Northern European and Western European. That should cover the Swedes, British and Germans lurking in my DNA.)
I'm going to give you another good reason to register: her name is Kris Miner. She suffers from transformed cutaneous t-cell lymphoma and the only treatment available for her is a stem cell and bone marrow transplant. However, there is no match for her in the national bone marrow registry. She is of Dutch and German extraction, so if you're interested in helping her specifically and that's your background as well (I'm looking at you, Iowegians), please visit this page to get more information and join the registry.
No matter what your DNA profile, bone marrow donors are needed to help treat a variety of life-threatening diseases. The National Marrow Donor Program can also use monetary donations and volunteers, so there are many ways to help. And help is very much needed.
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