Be a Hero. Save a Life!

Posted Mon, 02/08/2010 - 23:10 by tom

Want to register to save someone's life? It's easy.... it's free.... and it's painless. There are thousands of people with leukemia and other life threatening diseases waiting to find a match to save their life. My wife, Anna, is one of them, and we need your help. Here's what we need:

 

Virtual Donor Drive

We just started a virtual donor drive, where you can sign up for free online and be tested from the comfort of your home.
1. You register to be a donor, here http://join.marrow.org/AG1522 (note: when it asks for a promo code, make sure it says AG1522). You have to answer a handful of medical questions, and questions about how to contact you. It takes about 10 minutes in total.
2. They send you a kit to test yourself at home. You need to take a couple cotton swabs on the inside of your mouth, then send back to them for processing.
3. If you are a match, you'll be contacted and then the process to donate is similar to donating blood.
4. If you are not an immediate match, your information will remain in the database and you may be contacted in the future if you are a match.
 

Spread the Word

Post this page to your facebook account, or send it on to your friends/colleagues. Just click the button on the right to get started.
 

Host a Drive

Good old fashion drives at physical locations are very helpful. Ideally, this could be a church, a place of employment, or some other place where a number of people pass through. Given that a match is likely to come from the Latino community (given Anna's ethnicity), we especially need people to host drives in Latino communities.... but would love to put together a drive at any location.

 

Make a Financial Donation

Our current preferred charity is the Be The Match Foundation, which is part of the National Marrow Donor Program. This organization helps to raise awareness about donating marrow, helps grow the donor registry and helps advance the medicine behind transplants.
 
Thanks everyone for your help! With the help of your thoughts and prayers, we've made it thus far and we'll make it through this!
Tom, Anna, and TJ