In all honesty, I had no idea anything like this existed. Sure they have blood drives all over to donate blood, but I had never seen this before and it sparked my interest. I've been around cancer all of my life. My mother is a nurse and worked in an oncology office for many years. Throughout those years, I went into work with her and spent time with her patients while they received chemo. Even as a young girl, I built relationships with these people who did eventually lose their battle to cancer, but that doesn't mean the war has been lost. These special people remain close to my heart and their memory lives on. My step father is currently battling thyroid cancer, my grandmother beat breast and skin cancer, my own mother had a close call with a calcification found in her breast that eventually might have progressed into cancer, and my step grandmother died of multiple types of cancer as a result of many years of smoking. So in this war where we feel so helpless, what can we do as individuals to help?
On September 7, 2012 I got an email... "You've been identified as a possible marrow match for a 45-year-old female in need of a transplant. Please call me immediately..."
I honestly thought it was spam at first... some sort of scam or something and they'd get me to call them and try to steal my identity or something. I called and it was the NMDP and I got really excited when I found out that it was legitimate. After speaking to a lady at the program, we discussed whether or not I was still interested in donating and what would happen next if I was. She mailed a kit to a lab nearby to further test if I was the best match and if I had any infectious diseases.
From the second I found out I was a possible match, I knew in my heart that I was going to be chosen as the best match. Some may call this wishful thinking/hoping, intuition, whatever you may have it, but me? I call it divine intervention. I knew it was going to be me.
As a current 6th year pharmacy student, I've been spending this year completing my clinical requirements and am no longer sitting in a classroom. One of my clinical rotations was at a hospital nearby so I opted to get my blood work drawn there so I could do it on my lunch break. The kit consisted of 8 tubes that needed to be filled (about 60 mL of blood). I went in to get the blood drawn and it took two people to do it -- one held all of the tubes and handed them off to the other that was filling the tubes up with blood. Around tube 6 I started to get really light-headed and pale. I remember another lady coming over to make sure I didn't pass out. Looking back it was actually quite comical. I'm fairly petite so that was a lot of blood for me! (a reason I've never donated blood.) Normally, when you donate blood, they take ~450 mL (1 pint) so this was nothing in comparison. But nonetheless, the 3rd lady kept making me talk to her and asking me questions to make sure I stayed awake. They gave me some water and a lollipop and I was fine after 5-10 minutes; I think I scared them a little though.
Since I was working at that hospital for my current rotation, I later ran into the one lady that drew my blood that morning; she was a small, middle aged Indian woman with a thick accent so I had to really listen to understand her. She was such a sweetheart... she tilted my chin upwards toward her and said she wanted to look at me and make sure I was doing better. Then she told me that I was doing something great and could really help someone and that it might hurt and be a painful process, but it's all part of helping others. That really meant a lot to me.
At this point, I still hadn't been informed of my being the best match and I had no idea how long it would take for them to get the lab results back.
I think it was September 24th or 25th, so about 2.5 weeks later, I received a phone call from the NMDP. I believe it went something like this:
"Hi, this is Lee from the NMDP. You recently had blood work done to determine whether or not you might be a good match for this recipient. (short pause) Well, you're a match" (side note: Lee is the work-up specialist who is my main contact right now and will be following up with me through the course of this amazing opportunity I've been so blessed with.)
I was completely overcome with joy! He asked if I was still interested in donating and we talked a little bit about what would happen. He told me that the doctors would prefer a peripheral blood stem cell donation if that was okay with me and he explained what that consisted of. A link was emailed to me with information from the NMDP's website and he sent me a huge stack of consent forms that I received from the FedEx man 2 days later.
There were 4-5 forms that I had to sign giving consent to this and that. A lot of them were studies that I had consented to be part of so it gave permission to allow them to call me after the donation and for X amount of years later they will continue to contact me with survey questions. The studies aren't mandatory but I want to do whatever I can to help and if that includes being a statistic that could give scientists some insight, I'm all for it. Most of the studies are just surveys but one study will take 2 tubes of my blood and freeze it indefinitely to do whatever with... I just asked Lee that tiny humans not be made from my DNA and all will be right with the world. :)
I mailed the consent forms in and Lee and I worked out a date for a physical to be conducted to evaluate my health and if I am healthy enough to donate. We also determined the day the donation will take place. He gave me a list of hospitals that were closest to me and I was able to pick the hospital I wanted to go to. Lee scheduled the physical for me and sent me all of the paperwork that needed to be completed before my appointment. The physical has to be completed at the hospital in which the donation will be taking place so the doctor in charge of my case can be the one to evaluate me. One week from today (Friday October 19th) I'll be going for the physical and by the grace of God, I'm a healthy young woman and I pray I will be able to continue on with the donation that is set for November 14th. I have to admit that I'm pretty excited for the physical next week because that means I'll be one step closer to the donation date and Lee said they would probably show me around and show me where everything will be happening on the day of the donation.
We then scheduled a time for a 1-hour long information session which everyone has to do. In my next entry I'll include all of the information that Lee and I talked about during the information session.
Before I wrap this up, I just want everyone to know that throughout many of these phone and email conversations, I was and have still been given the option to opt out of this. I was in no way forced to do this or forced to continue to do this. I was not pressured or guilted into this either. The recipient is still unaware that this is happening; all she knows is that there is a possible match for her. She won't find out until a few days before the donation takes place that she's even having the transplant as to not get anyone's hopes up and then have them find out the donation can't happen because I opted out or failed the physical.
I guess that's enough for one night. Until next time...
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