About 10 years ago, I became aware of a woman who worked in my company whose 2 year old son had leukaemia. He was a rare tissue type and the family were desperately trying to raise awareness about the Bone Marrow Donor registry so more people would join and a possible match might be found for her son and for others who urgently needed bone marrow transplants.
So I organised for a bunch of us at Cosmo to go down to the red cross and join the registry (via a simple blood test) in the hope we could help. Tragically, my colleague never found a match for her son and he died. But thousands of others are being helped by regular people like us. Something I didn’t know was that there are millions of different tissue types, and for every person who needs a transplant, there could only be 1 or 2 people on the donor registry worldwide that will be their match.
I’ve remained on the registry and twice, I’ve been matched, including a few weeks ago. Here is a video interview I did with Maureen Astbury, Donor Coordinator from the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry:
Some Facts About The Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry
Each year thousands of people are diagnosed with leukaemia or other life threatening blood disorders. A bone marrow/blood stem cell transplant is the only possible treatment for many of these people to save their lives.
Once you’ve registered, you will have a simple blood test to determine your tissue type which is the information that is used to match donors with patients. On recruitment, a sample of your blood will be stored in case more detailed HLA typing is needed later. You usually won’t be contacted by the ABMDR unless identified as a potential match for a patient and no bone marrow/blood stem cells will be taken at this time.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY TO POSSIBLY SAVE SOMEONE’S LIFE:
For more information or to make an appointment to join the registry call the Australian Red Cross Blood Service on 13 14 95 or visit their website.
The Gift of Life Australia organisation also raises awareness about donating bone marrow and encourages those who want to help save a life by registering onto the Australian Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Donor Registry ABMDR, within the Jewish Community and other ethnic minority groups.
Source: ABMDR and Gift of Life Australia
UPDATE: I don’t yet know if I’m the “perfect” tissue match for the woman in Spain who has leukaemia. I will keep you posted.
Top Comments
Interesting information especially When you see all that children who are alive today because of cord blood banking, cord blood banking and preserving changes everything. This may not be too relevant, but you only get one chance to do this.
Oh thank you and bless you Mia. I am the lady who has had Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and I have written occasional comments to the site over the last twelve months. My last post described how I now have fried hair, kidneys, and ovaries. I am now on my sixth type of chemo in 2 years. I was told 1 year ago that I need a donor transplant. My brother is not a match, there is no match on the Australian registry, and apparently none worldwide, although the search continues. As a last ditch effort my haematologist is searching cord blood registries now. Thank you for making people aware of the ABMDR. So many friends said they would donate their bone marrow to me and wanted to be tested, but I had to tell them the only way to do that is to join the ABMDR. I think if everyone knew that it just involved a blood test, and then if you do match a patient, you are only really giving an almost normal blood donation to them (i.e. nothing scary involving bones or marrow) more people would join the ABMDR. There are so many patients waiting for a door transplant here in Newcastle. I have been puzzled about the lack of publicity for ABMDR compared to the recent advertising for organ donation. This is a way you can save a life without having to die first! I think there are two obstacles for the ABMDR to overcome. The first is the name. If I was 25 and someone asked me to donate my bone marrow to them I would have said no way. If someone had explained to me that it was actually a donation of blood from my arm, I would have said yes. I wonder if all this explained to say the under 40 blood donors when they do normal donations at the blood bank. Thanks again, and wow, it is so nice to actually "know" one of the people on the registry that could save my life. Also, thanks to all the blood donors out there. My chemo means I need lots of transfusions of blood and platelets to stay alive. Lots of love, Wendy.
Wishing you well and a long and healthy future Wendy.
Thank you Mia for making us aware of this type of donation.I am now booked in tomorrow to do my first blood donation at Redcross where I will also be able to register for the Bone Marrow Registry.
This is also timely as unfortunatley a very good friend has just been diagnosed with lymphoma so it brings it closer to home.
Until this post from Mia I was not really aware of bone marrow donation. It's not like the publicity that donating blood gets.
So thanks again as now I will benefit two organisations.