Stem Cell/ Bone Marrow Donation
 

i would be happy to donate anything that will help
i am also signed up for organ donation on my license
and i give blood as often as possible.

:fastdraq:

i just registered
be looking for my kit in the mail

i think it's amazing that you started this thread.
lives will be saved.

now i just wish i could get a spare liver. :seeingstars:

if you and i get a match you are welcome to part of mine
i have been pretty good to it, for the most part.

ps..... masturbating doesn't harm the liver does it?????????/

I was JUST having this conversation with my eldest.
I had no idea a partial liver would do.
I see the dr. this afternoon and should have a better idea of where
things stand when test results are given today.

I just might need that SOS.

awww. thanks.
and i wonder if i get part of your liver if i will become a chronic masturbater too?
oh. wait.....

One afternoon or a few days of discomfort vs. saving a life?
That's not a hard decision to make.
Now that I know the pain that goes with the big "C"?
Even a needle in the hip bone to save somebody from that cannot compare. :candle:

Yes, it's just a cheek swab to determine your HLA typing, however if you are a match it can be a very different story depending on whether it's bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells (this comes from the FAQ of marrow.org website):

Q: How are bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation different?

A: Donating bone marrow is a surgical procedure done under general or regional anesthesia in a hospital. While a donor receives anesthesia, doctors use needles to withdraw liquid marrow from the back of the pelvic bone.

PBSC donation is a non-surgical procedure done in an outpatient clinic. PBSC donors receive daily injections of a drug called filgrastim for five days, to increase the number of blood-forming cells in the bloodstream. Then, through a process called apheresis, a donor's blood is removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to the donor through the other arm.

if i had pure marrow i would do it in a second.
but then, i am no stranger to bone marrow aspirations so it doesn't frighten me.

Thank you Spirit Dancer for posting this thread. I went to work this morning. :| I talked with my CEO and she sent out a e-mail to everyone in our facility. I was so happy to see the response! We will be having a drive Tuesday. And at this very moment we have 64 people signed up to get there cheek swab, and yes, I had to explain to a few of our fellow employees that it's not the cheek that there originally thinking about :hamactor:
Finally our hospital has something to be excited about besides donating blood. Once again, what a wonderful Idea Spirit Dancer, now if I can get the other 39 associates to swab away!

I had plannd to do this a couple of years after a news article published about a local guy needing a bone marrow transplant. However, during my procrastination, the young man died. I will never know if I could have been a match. Still wears on me. I didn't know there was a registry. Thanks for bringing this to my awareness. And stem cell donation!?
How does that work with live donors? Did I miss that?

Live Donor Liver Transplantation
Sander Florman1 and Charles M. Miller2
1Tulane University School of Medicine, Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, New Orleans, LA,
and 2The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
Received January 10, 2005; accepted February 2, 2006.
With ever-increasing demand for liver replacement, supply of organs is the limiting factor and a significant number of patients
die while waiting. Live donor liver transplantation has emerged as an important option for many patients, particularly small
pediatric patients and those adults that are disadvantaged by the current deceased donor allocation system. Ideally there would
be no need to subject perfectly healthy people in the prime of their lives to a potentially life-threatening operation to procure
transplantable organs. Donor safety is imperative and cannot be compromised regardless of the implication for the intended
recipient. The evolution of split liver transplantation is the basis upon which live donor transplantation has become possible.
The live donor procedures are considerably more complex than whole organ decreased donor transplantation and there are
unique considerations involved in the assessment of any specific recipient and donor. Donor selection and evaluation have
become highly specialized. The critical issue of size matching is determined by both the actual size of the donor graft and the
recipient as well as the degree of recipient portal hypertension. The outcomes after live donor liver transplantation have been
at least comparable to those of deceased donor transplantation. Nevertheless, all efforts should be made to improve deceased
donor donation so as to minimize the need for live donors. Transplant physicians, particularly surgeons, must take
responsibility for regulating and overseeing these procedures. Liver Transpl 12:499-510, 2006. © 2006 AASLD.

The demand for liver transplantation has continued to
increase in the last three decades and has far outpaced
the supply of organs from deceased donors. In the U.S.
alone, more than 90,000 people are on transplant waiting
lists, whereas the number of deceased liver donors
in recent years has remained stable at approximately
6,000.1 More than 18,000 patients are waiting
for livers. Allocation of these precious, life-saving organs
is currently dictated by patients’ scores on the
Model for End-stage Liver Disease, a disease-severity
index based solely on bilirubin, creatinine, and international
normalized ratio. The Model for End-stage
Liver Disease (or, in children, the Pediatric End-stage
Liver Disease model) allows prioritization of the sickest
patients.2,3 Still, death on the waiting list in 2004 was
greater than 10%.1
Faced with these statistics, physicians caring for
these patients have endeavored to perform transplants
with partial liver grafts from healthy, volunteer live donors.
An estimated 7,000 living donor liver transplants
have been performed worldwide.

ADVANTAGES OF LIVE DONORS
Organs from living donors offer many potential advantages
over organs from brain-dead donors. The most important
advantages of live donation are that it optimizes
the timing of transplantation and frees patients from the
waiting list. These factors have become especially helpful
for patients who are disadvantaged by the cadaver organ
allocation scheme, including patients with tumors, cholestatic
diseases, or blood type O, as well as those who are
retransplantation candidates.
Preservation time is minimal in live donor transplants,
so there is significantly less ischemic damage to
the liver. Live donors are by definition healthy, and
therefore the quality of the donated liver is much better.
Brain death results in many adverse pathophysiologic
effects that damage the liver. Perhaps most importantly,
live donor transplantation increases the global
pool of transplantable organs, allowing more people to
benefit from this potentially life-saving therapy.
DISADVANTAGES OF LIVE DONORS
There are, however, a number of disadvantages to live
donor transplantation which must be considered carefully.
The donor, a perfectly healthy volunteer, faces
unequivocal risks of morbidity and even mortality
which put the procedure at odds with the very basic
tenets of medicine and the oath that all physicians
pledge to keep: Primum non nocere – First, cause no
harm. The risk of death for donors of a left lateral segment
or a left lobe is estimated to be approximately
0.1%, whereas the risk for donors of a right lobe is
estimated to be approximately 0.4 to 0.5%.25

Here is a link to the entire article
with graphs
http://www.aasld.org/conferences/Doc...ts/Florman.pdf

So 'live stem cell donor' is liver transplant? My sister has just been diagnosed with 'C'. She has started chemo therapy with a research drug (weekly injections and daily pill). If after six months the treatment looks as if it is working she will continue, otherwise, next year there is a new drug regiment being introduced, She will start on that one. If that doesn't show results in 6 months, then she will need the transplant. I was thinking I needed to wait to check for match on the liver. So I will go ahead and test for her match. Can one person do more that a one time 'live liver donation' after regrowing the liver?

Link for Peripheral blood stem cell donation
http://www.stjude.org/SJFile/stem_ce...c_donation.pdf

One more important fact
Q: Who pays for the donation process?
A: Donors never pay for donating, and are never paid to donate.

All medical costs for the donation procedure are covered by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which operates the Be The Match Registry, or by the patient's medical insurance, as are travel expenses and other non-medical costs. The only costs to the donor might be time taken off from work.

Well apparently, I am not an acceptable age group for liver donation.

So we all know the facts from myth


Myths & Facts about Bone Marrow Donation
Learn the facts about bone marrow donation to help you make an informed decision about joining the Be The Match Registry®.

MYTH:
All bone marrow donations involve surgery.

FACT:
The majority of donations do not involve surgery. Today, the patient's doctor most often requests a peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donation, which is non-surgical.

The second way of donating is marrow donation, which is a surgical procedure.

In each case, donors typically go home the same day they donate.

MYTH:
Donating is painful and involves a long recovery.

FACT:
There can be uncomfortable but short-lived side effects of donating PBSC. Due to taking a drug called filgrastim for five days leading up to donation, PBSC donors may have headaches, joint or muscle aches, or fatigue. PBSC donors are typically back to their normal routine in one to two days.

Those donating marrow receive general or regional anesthesia, so they feel no pain during donation. Marrow donors can expect to feel some soreness in their lower back for one to two weeks afterward. Most marrow donors are back to their normal activities in two to seven days.

MYTH:
Donating is dangerous and weakens the donor.

FACT:
Though no medical procedure is without risk, there are rarely any long-term side effects. Be The Match® carefully prescreens all donors to ensure they are healthy and the procedure is safe for them. We also provide support and information every step of the way.

Because only five percent or less of a donor's marrow is needed to save the patient's life, the donor's immune system stays strong and the cells replace themselves within four to six weeks.

MYTH:
In bone marrow donation, pieces of bone are removed from the donor.

FACT:
No pieces of bone are taken during marrow donation. Only the liquid marrow found inside the pelvic bone is needed to save the patient's life.
http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Myths_&_F...Don/index.html

Saw the Dr. and partial liver donations will not be an option.
He said that it will be an all or nothing situation but he doesn't
think I will be approved due to the leukemia.

So I asked if it was basically a race to the finish line.

He said yes, and I am fine with that.

Still, there are so many people who can be helped. I have probably been a tiny bit sanctimonious about the subject because it means so much to me me me. That is not fair and I did not intend to sound like people who do not want to donate are somehow bad or wrong. I'm so sorry if I came off like that.

I'd offer up any part of me that would save you........I loves you my friend :)

Thank you please add my sister to the candlelist-Becky McGurn. She is mother of 4; GM of 4. She is a vibrant, loving and caring person.

This walk is for all blood cancers