Be the Match: Bone marrow registry drive, blood drive
| Wednesday, Nov 04 2009 05:47 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Nov 04 2009 05:47 PM
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What: Be the Match Bone Marrow Registry and Blood Drive
Where: Houchin Blood Bank, 5901 Truxtun Ave.
When: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7
Call: Tracy Hunter at 323-4222 to set up a bone marrow registry or blood drive.
Karen Harris at 679-4622 to sign up for the bone marrow registry happening Saturday.
Images:
Felix Adamo/ The Californian Dede and Mike Person. Mike has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible
Houchin Blood Bank will hold Be the Match, an event to join the national bone marrow registry and donate blood, on Saturday.
The Be the Match event will be held in honor of Mike Person, a Bakersfield resident who has myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of leukemia. Person needs a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible.
"My life changed from daylight to dark," he said of the diagnosis.
Mike's wife, Dede, said he first realized something was wrong when he saw blood in his urine. At first, he thought he had a kidney stone, but he felt very sick and believed something much worse was happening. A doctor at Kaiser Permanente eventually diagnosed Mike with myelodysplastic syndrome.
Person was a truck driver for 30 years before his diagnosis in August. Now he can't work. He has to get blood and platelet treatments frequently and receives chemotherapy every six weeks.
"It has really taught us to cherish each other and cherish our family," Dede Person said, adding that the experience brought them closer together.
A co-worker of Dede's contacted Houchin Blood Bank staff and told them about Mike.
Tracy Hunter, account manager for Houchin, said it's easy to join the bone marrow registry. A person watches a 12-minute film and fills out a health questionnaire. Then a swab of the cheek is taken and sent to a company called Heart of America in San Francisco, where it is kept for testing.
Houchin holds events such as Be the Match about three times a year, Hunter said. The person in whose honor it is held is not the only person who could benefit; anyone who needs a bone marrow transplant could potentially find a match.
There are some health guidelines for donating bone marrow. Donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60. According to Be the Match's Web site, anyone diagnosed with HIV/AIDS cannot donate. Other conditions that prevent donation are: autoimmune diseases, diabetes requiring insulin, a history of spine and/or pelvic bone problems, bleeding problems such as hemophilia, an active cancer, heart disease, hepatitis B or C, chronic kidney or liver problems, a received human organ transplant such as heart or lung or being extremely underweight or overweight, although that condition is evaluated on a person-by-person basis, Hunter said.
If a person is contacted as a bone marrow match, he or she flies to San Francisco for the procedure, which takes the bone marrow from the back of the pelvic bone. General or local anesthesia is used. Hunter said the procedure is often done on an outpatient basis, but people sometimes stay overnight in the hospital.
A person on the bone marrow registry can be called at any time to donate, Hunter said. This could be a matter or weeks, months or years. As long as Heart of America has a person's current address on file, he or she is considered active on the registry.
Hunter shared the story of a corrections officer in Tehachapi who was called to donate bone marrow two weeks after joining the registry. His donation ended up saving a young girl's life.
The bone marrow registry particularly needs Hispanic people to join, because they have a higher incidence of rare blood disorders, Hunter said. Matches are often found within the same ethnic group, so diversity is important.
