The gift of life

CEDAR RAPIDS - Nicole Stephenson found her match, or rather it found her, in June.

The orthopedics nurse at UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Hospital registered with Delete Blood Cancer DKMS, a global bone marrow program, in August of 2011 after reading a magazine article about bone marrow donors.

“I was like, ‘Well, I'm a nurse. I want to help people,'” Stephenson says. “I was a blood donor at the time. I figured how hard could it be to donate this stuff, too?”

Nearly two years had passed since Stephenson registered on the website. Not every person who registers will be called to donate, so she put it out of her mind. “I kind of forgot about it,” she says, until the e-mail arrived.

“It said I was a potential match and asked me to call right away,” she says.

She did and by August, she was at a hospital in Chicago to donate bone marrow for a cancer patient she'll never meet. She doesn't even know if the person she helped is a man or a woman.

Bone marrow donors can donate in one of two ways: a peripheral blood stem cell donation or a bone marrow donation.

A PBSC donation is the most common. Used in 75 percent of cases, this non-surgical method collects cells via the bloodstream. A donor's blood is drawn via a sterile needle in one arm and passed through a machine that filters out the blood stem cells and then returns the rest of your blood back to your body through the other arm.

Bone marrow donation is an outpatient surgical procedure that takes place under general anesthesia so that the donor doesn't feel anything. Doctors use a special syringe to collect liquid marrow from the back of the donor's pelvic bone. This method is used in about 25 cases.

In all donor situations, the cancer patient's doctor will select the one that's best for their patient.

“I think a lot of people imagine being a bone marrow donor means a big needle being inserted into their spine, but that's not true,” says Tara Schuh, the communications lead for Delete Blood Cancer DKMS. “The methods in which people make a donation has changed a lot with medical advancements.”

Most donors, she says, experience few side effects. Stephenson had to spend the night in the hospital after he veins gave out during the PBSC donation.

“They had to put in a central line, so I stayed overnight,” she says. “It hurt a little bit, but compared to what the other person is going through, with chemotherapy and everything, it's fine.”

In fact, Stephenson is prepared to donate again.

“This same person might need more stuff from me, more blood or stem cells,” she says. “There's always the potential. I guess I'd want someone to do the same for me.”

According to the National Blood Marrow Donor Program, more than 12,000 patients in the U.S are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia or lymphoma, each year. About 70 percent of patients in need of a marrow transplant do not have a matching donor in their family.

“Only 4 out of 10 patients will receive a transplant because of the lack of potential donors,” Schuh says. “The more people registered to be a bone marrow donor, the better the chances patients in need will find a match.”

The need for donors is even greater for minority groups, including African Americans, individuals of Hispanic descent and people of multiple races. Statistically, patients are most likely to match someone of their own race or ethnicity.

There are several sites in which potential donors can register, including Delete Blood Cancer DKMS (www.deletebloodcancer.org), Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation (www.giftoflife.org) and Be The Match, which is operated by the National Blood Marrow Donor Program (bethematch.org). After a person signs up online, they receive a registration kit to swab their check cells. This gives the registry their tissue type, with the results used to find a patient match.

The age requirements to be a donor vary by registry, but all potential donors must be at least 18 years old to register. Potential donors can only register on one site at one time.

“It's a very selfless act,” Schuh says. “We all have the potential to change the course of a person's life.”