Kindness: Bone Marrow Registry

About a year and a half ago, the wife of a friend of a friend got leukemia.

In college, I was friends with the husband. Not super-close, but we ran in the same circle since he was good friends with my best friend. He married the wife in the spring I think, and by late summer, they had a diagnosis. She'd been tired and lost weight. But they thought it was due to the wedding planning and stress etc. But it wasn't. It was cancer. She's doing well now. Not sure what the treatment was in general, but she's on long-term medication that's keeping it in remission.

Now, I'm not sure I actually met her, well, maybe once. But she was the wife of a friend of a friend. And she was my age. And she was a newlywed. And I was engaged. And it just put things in perspective a little bit. It's not that I thought I was invincible; far from it. But you don't really think about getting cancer at our age. Old person cancer, Yes. Childhood cancer, Yes. Early twenties newlywed cancer, No. You just don't think about it; I don't think about it at least. So it was something that made an impact on me.

When I heard about what happened, I wished there was something I could do. But there wasn't really much to be done - pray. But I also did a little research. And looked into getting on the bone marrow donor registry. I did some reading, but things looked complicated and time-consuming should I be chosen to donate. So it went to the back-burner.

More recently, I was talking to a new friend who is a nurse in an oncology department at one of the hospitals in town. I'm not sure how we got on the topic, but she and her husband were new members on the bone marrow registry. So I asked her some questions about donating. Apparently, it's not as time consuming and difficult to donate as I thought. So it went back into my consideration set.

Last Friday, I walked through the mall downstairs on the way to my office (my office tower entrance is inside the mall - between Arden B and Levenger). In the central court of the mall was an empty kiosk. No one was there, but there were signs for bone marrow donation registry sign-up. I made a mental note to come back by at lunch. Which I did. There was a lady in a blue wig trying in vain to stop passers-by and get them to sign up for the registry. As I made a beeline for the desk, they seemed a little surprised. I'm not sure how effective the blue wig had been. I filled out a form. I did a quick cheek swab and put it in an envelope. I signed on the dotted line. And I registered to donate bone marrow. So if someone needs me to, I can save their life.

I was really excited. Probably because it had been on my radar for quite some time. So when I got back to the office, I sent my friend in HR an email about it. Telling him that a group was set up in the mall registering people. That in Massachusetts your health insurance has to cover the lab costs to get you onto the registry (scan your DNA I guess). So it's free, painless and only takes a few minutes. And I asked him to send out an agency email. Which he did. And several people wrote back really positive responses about registering.

One of my cube-mates went down into the mall later that afternoon to run some errands. She went by the registry to see about signing up. But there was a wait. So many people were down there, she'd have to wait a little bit. Now, I'm not sure that it was people from my office. But it was packed none-the-less.

So, maybe not a direct kindness. One that may come to fruition. Should I get a call and get asked to save a life.