Posts Tagged ‘Bone Marrow Donation’
What does it mean to be a match?
For many patients with blood cancer, there is a cure: a bone marrow transplant. Just registering as a bone marrow donor means giving blood cancer patients hope for a second chance at life. In many cases, your bone marrow might be the only match to someone in need, which means your donation is a patient’s…
Read MoreMy Experience as a Bone Marrow Donor – Part 2
My sister had been fighting leukemia for five years, and the time had finally come for me to attempt to help cure her cancer. The night before and morning of the transplant I had to fast; I think my last meal was orange chicken and chow mein from Panda Express. My mother brought…
Read MoreMy Experience as a Bone Marrow Donor – Part 1
In 2007 my older sister Jonell was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia during her senior year of college. CML is a type of blood cancer that can settle in other parts of the body including the spleen. It’s a slow growing cancer that can mutate into a fast growing acute leukemia that can…
Read MoreThe Bone Marrow Registry and Why Diversity Matters
With every passing 120 seconds a person in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer. Many people look to the National Bone Marrow Registry when in need of a transplant, but many people are looking at this list and seeing a huge problem. Minorities are greatly underrepresented on the bone marrow registry. 67%…
Read MoreWe’ve Reached 10,000 Swabs!
In seven years, There Goes My Hero has added 10,000 people to the national bone marrow donor registry. That means that there are 10,000 more potential life savers thanks to our efforts. These swabs have resulted in 125 matches, with 17 life-saving transplants. We are so thankful for your support and the support of…
Read MoreJoin for Joe!
Next week, Loyola Blakefield will host their 7th annual Join for Joe bone marrow donor registry drive. The drive was started for Loyola student Joe Gorman, who passed away from leukemia in 2011 at the age of 15 after battling for three years. There Goes My Hero is so proud to partner with the…
Read MorePatient Stories – Board Member Michele Bresnick Walsh in Baltimore Style
Read board member Michele Bresnick Walsh’s story about finding an unrelated bone marrow donor on the National Registry in Baltimore Style magazine.
Read MoreLearn a Little – How to Find a Perfect Match
We talk about getting “matches” for leukemia patients, but what exactly is a match? Every person has a blood type (think A+, O-, etc.), and when we get a blood transfusion, we have to get a type of blood that agrees with our bodies. Finding a match for a bone marrow transplant or blood stem…
Read MoreChampions of the Transplant – E. Don Thomas
“Don was a hero.” – Fred Appelbaum, Deputy Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center At 3:40 a.m. on an October morning in 1990, Don Thomas woke to the sound of his phone ringing. It was the Novel Prize committee calling to congratulate him – Thomas had won the highest honor in medicine for his…
Read MorePartnering with #JennStrong and the Ravens
In March of 2014, sports reporter Nestor “Nasty” Aparicio’s wife Jenn was diagnosed out of the blue with leukemia, just like some 50,000 people each year in the United States. Jenn has an extremely rare form of leukemia that has characteristics of both lymphoblastic and myelogenous leukemia, and the hope is that a bone marrow…
Read More