Delenn said:Finally found a bone marrow drive I could get to. (I tried organizing
one at Church but it failed for two reasons: half the people said they
didn't want to put themselves through a painful extraction if they were
a match, and the other half had already registered at some point or
another. I personally have trouble understanding who wouldn't take a
stab in the back to save someone's life, but I figure they haven't
figured out karma yet and the joke;s on them.
Actually, they usually use stem cells harvested from peripheral blood.
You get about a week of neupogen injections to cause your body's marrow
stem cells to proliferate and enter the peripheral blood and then they
hook you up to a maching which filters them out and gives your blood
back. Some people can get achy bones. If the first graft doesn't 'take',
then they may go back and ask for a bone marrow donation, but that's
done under general so there is no 'painful extraction'.
Quoted message said:Anyway, I showed up at this bone marrow drive with my cutest kid tagging
along. This particular child of mine has had two serious
hospitalizations where he got to live 'cuz of medical marvels, and he
gives me a certain perspective on karma.
And along comes the local TV reporter crew and they glom right onto me.
I figure it was the cute kid, since everyone else in the room was a
typical gorgeous 22 year old college chick. (Not a lot of men showing
up for this.)
That's sad, because men are badly needed. The US Air Force used to (and
I think still does) run marrow drives, but that still doesn't provide
enough male volunteers.
Quoted message said:They interview me about bone marrow donation (as I hold
Cute Kid like an Accessory on my hip) and we show up on the nightly news.
By the way, what I said was that I was there because a friend of mine
has aplastic anemia, and I know that the odds are that I won't be a
match for him, but I might be a match for someone else and I'd take a
stab in the back to save a stranger's life. What goes around comes around.
Thank you.
Quoted message said:
So, anyway, I'm signed up. Quite publically. And the [censored] made me
pay $65 to do it, too, on account of my sheer whiteness.
Probably covers the cost of the test for the major HLA screening. If you
match someone, their hospital will pay for you to have a second blood
test to see if you match on the remaining antigens that they match for.
Quoted message said:(I put down
four different ethnic categories on my sheet, but all of them translated
to "white" to them.) IMO they should get the money from the people who
are too scared to sign up. Guilt money or something.
So, how are you doing?
Just survived a series of moronic stuff ups in hospital before walking
out after 10 days. I'm recovering from that, but I'm debating whether to
lodge formal complaints about the two biggest ones. We're still waiting
to see if they damaged my kidneys. I wish I could get my cousin and
David Cohen to come over and handle some of the shifts during the
transplant. They could tell the doctors off who don't bloody well listen
to the other doctors or the patients! They changed orders during
treatments they knew nothing about and cut off IV hydration when the
patient is too sick to keep even water down...but they keep the high
doses of IV nephrotoxic drugs running full steam ahead *sigh*
On a brighter note, seeing as we finally got the higher concentration
deca durabolin, I'm able to get the 400mg/wk that I need and it appears
to be starting to have an effect. Far too soon to tell, though.
Ari
Quoted message said:
Delenn
--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
