Bone Marrow Donation Links

Here’s some of what I found during my search for information about the bone marrow/PBSC donation process.

If you visit just one link on this page, click on this:

• Be the Match, website of the National Marrow Donor Program. NMDP is the world’s largest bone marrow/PBSC and cord blood registry, listing more than 8 million individuals. As of January 2010 (according to Wikipedia), the NMDP had facilitated more than 38,000 transplants worldwide, and mine will add to that number. The site has information on everything from how to register to the search and matching process to details of the procedure, as well as videos and a blog with donor stories. An amazing resource.

Other bone marrow/PBSC donor registries:

• DKMS – Bone Marrow Donor Center
• Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation: North America’s Jewish bone marrow donor registry and cord blood bank.
• AADP Asian American Donor Program: specializing in conducting outreach and donor drives in the Asian, Pacific Islander and Multi-racial communities.
• British Bone Marrow Registry
• Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide is a registry of all registries, including almost 15 million donors from 44 countries, and cord blood banks from 26 countries.
• New York Blood Center: Not a registry, but one of the many wonderful  organizations who work with donors on a local level to facilitate the nuts and bolts of the process.

PBSC and surgical bone marrow donors’ personal accounts:

• PBSC Donation Writeup. A wonderful account by someone who matched and donated twice (what are the odds?)!—and whose stem cells, like  mine, were frozen before transplantation.
• Kylie’s Adventure with PBSC Donation
• A Quick View of PBSC/Marrow Donation
• How I Met My Match: A Donor Story
• My Experience of Stem Cell (Bone Marrow) Donation by apheresis (PBSC)
• How to save a life: the story of my bone marrow donation
• The Bone Marrow Blog, with some great photos. The author continued this blog after her donation and it now focuses on donor advocacy, truly excellent.
• Donating bone marrow was the most amazing life changing experience
• Anonymous PBSC Donor
• My Personal Experience as a Bone Marrow Donor – Brian E. Beattie
• Two donation stories on the Be the Match site
• My Journey as a Marrow Donor
• How I Became a Stem Cell Donor

PBSC and bone marrow donations in the news:

• All-Access Pass: Give a gift that can save lives. Behind-the-scenes tour (see video on right side of page) of Minneapolis headquarters of the National Bone Marrow Donor Program, including the actual rooms where DNA samples are stored (mine is there, somewhere!) (12/16/10)
• Perfect match: Denver City man meets stranger who made life-saving bone marrow transplant possible (11/5/10)
• Helping their own: The world’s first and only registry for unrelated Arab donors of bone marrow or stem cells is operating out of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. (10/31/10)
• CBS This Morning: How did a woman, who died more than 10 years ago, save an infant’s life last year? (10/10/10)
• WSB-TV, Atlanta: Beautiful story of a donor-recipient meeting (10/5/10)
• You’re watching me save a life: Daily News reporter donates bone marrow to leukemia victim (10/03/10)
• Air Guardsman donates bone marrow (06/25/10)
• Good to the bone: Being a bone marrow courier is intense and exhausting, but also an honour and a joy. A man who volunteers to carry the priceless cargo from donor to recipient. Fascinating. (06/04/10)
• Lisa Niemi, wife of Patrick Swayze, is a patient advocate for a woman with MDS (myelodysplasic syndrome) who needs a bone marrow transplant. (05/31/10)
• “The Lovely Bones”: Essay in The Jewish Week about bone marrow donation and related language in the Torah. (06/24/09)
• The life of a bone marrow courier. Another incredible person. (03/07/09)
• The Need and Ease of Bone Marrow Donation (04/03/08)
• CBS News video interview with a fireman and his physician during the process of PBSC donation. (07/16/07)
• Eye To Eye: Dr. Jeffrey Chell, CEO of the National Marrow Donor Program, talks with Katie Couric about bone marrow transplants. CBSNews.com. (07/06/07)

Some videos about PBSC donation (there are many, many more online):

• A Day in the Life of a Hero – A Bone Marrow Donor
• Leukaemia/BMI 10: Donating Bone Marrow
• Girl Prepares to Undergo Marrow Donation
• Bone Marrow Donor: Michelle’s Story
• Bone Marrow Stem Cell Donation
• Alan and Joy – a bone marrow donation story
• A3M – I Am a Bone Marrow Donor
• How to Donate Bone Marrow from Howcast.com, source of all knowledge
• Thank You, Andrew. Thanks from recipient to donor—just beautiful.

Helpful websites for both donors and patients:

• An online forum for bone marrow donors and patients. I posted questions here and received kind and thoughtful answers; a wonderful resource.
• Need to inject yourself with Neupogen? Here’s how.
• National Bone Marrow Transplant Link: non-profit organization that supports transplant patients. Excellent links and information for recipients (very interesting for donors, as well).
• Marrowforums: online discussion groups for patients with bone marrow failure diseases.
• Be A Hero Become A Donor Foundation: “Giving hope to patients and families in need.” Organization dedicated to educate and raise awareness to the need for individuals to donate blood on a regular basis, consider publicly banking their baby’s cord blood, and join the NMDP and Donate Life Registries.
• Video showing a surgical bone marrow  harvest.
• Bone Marrow Transplantation: scientific journal (in case you just can’t stop reading about this stuff)