DALLAS - Jeramy Thomas checked into Children's Medical Center Dallas hoping a bone marrow transplant would save his life. His father was his perfect match.
"I'm blessed, yes," he said.
But, not lost on him was the bone marrow drive downstairs, where perfect strangers signed up to become matches for people they have never met.
"Being willing to provide life to people, that's a big thing to do," said Thomas with tears in his eyes.
Not so big is the process of becoming part of the national bone marrow registry. It's as easy as swabbing the inside of the mouth with a Q-tip, and you can do it yourself.
"It's much easier to give bone marrow than your kidney," sais Andrew Koh, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist.
Yet, Koh said many people won't sign up because of misconceptions about the pain or expense of donating bone marrow. Donors pay nothing.
"Even patients expect on the bone marrow transplant that they have to go to the operating room and that somebody actually has to pour it back into the bone," he said. "Whereas, it's basically a blood transfusion at that point."
After being selected as a bone marrow match, donating can take two forms. In many cases, the experience is a non-surgical peripheral blood stem cell donation, which is a lot like donating blood. In other cases, marrow is extracted from the donor's hips in the operating room. Those patients are often back to normal activities in two days and experience some back discomfort for up to two weeks.
Koh said the more people on the registery, the more lives that can be saved.
"Particularly in our country where there's multi ethnic combinations, it's very very difficult to find those matches," he said. "So, it's nice to have a registery where there's thousands and thousands of people so we can look and find an appropriate match for a child to hopefully be able to cure them."
John Anderson is not a match for his own two-year old daughter, Ann Hinckley. She is fighting aplastic anemia. However, he wasn't discouragedfrom registering.
"This symbolizes hope for someone else," said Anderson, after swabbing his mouth. "Maybe not my daughter, but someone."
To get a free National Marrow Donor Program kit, visit www.bethematch.org. Use the promo code "childrens."
E-mail: jstjames@wfaa.com
