Saturday, January 30, 2010

Bucket List Item #44 - Join the Stem Cell and Marrow Registry


Okay so I'm a big dork. And in my dorkdom I wholeheartedly am drawn to doing dorky things, especially when they involve some sort of personal growth and organization. Yeah, it's that bad. I make lists and do the things on them and I check them off and it makes me happy. These things are normally "take the garbage out" or "get groceries", "pay bills" and so on; things that are relatively quick and painless and, well monotonous. I decided to make a bucket list as a way to start focusing on achieving some of the things that I've always wanted to. I'm checking my first item off of the list and though it was pretty quick and painless (so far, at least) I couldn't be happier to have done it: #44 - Join the Stem Cell and Marrow Registry. I suppose I am a little quick to check this off my list as I am technically not on the registry yet (I've joined the registry but still need to have my mouth swabbed) but should be in the next week or so.

Registering is something I've had good intentions of doing for a long time and for no good reason have not gotten around to. There are thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening illnesses who require a bone marrow transplant and in order for this to happen, they need to find a donor who is a match. The more people who are capable of donating and join the registry, the more matches that will be found and the more lives that will be saved.

To join the registry in Canada click here. In the US click here. Btw, all of the national registries are linked together in one large database.

3 comments:

Bryan Raydio said...

a valiant cause but i won't be registering, mostly because i don't want anyone to have my DNA, but should i change my mind i've found another way to contribute

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090806121716.htm

Natty said...

Don't worry Bray. No one wants your DNA anyway. Haha.

T said...

I finally got on the list as well...such a simple thing that could literally save someone's life. How cool is that? ;-)