Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The trail of blood- a documentary on bone marrow donation

I saw this documentary at the Lithuanian cinema evening yesterday, and decided to write about it. The main message of this movie was to me, that if we are here living together and it is sometimes so easy to help, we could do it much more often. do What makes us to be ignorant, if sometimes even the smallest help from us can save a life, or change the life of an other person to a big extent.

Of course I do not want to be judgmental, and it is everyone`s own choice what he does with his life, but I believe in it that that people have to give back something to others who are less privileged and help each other.

To continue on a more practical level the documentary is about bone marrow donor-ship and blood cancer patients. I also had this misconcept that they somehow scratch the bone for it and you shout from pain, but NO. I decided to share the new info I found about it, because I think this whole thing is something very nice to do, and may be someone will read this post who decides to become a donor, and can save a life of an other person through this.

Source: catopartners.com



How is it performed:

First they take a small sample of blood to determinate your tissue type, they keep the info in the register. You will be contacted if you are a potential match for a person requiring a transplant.

The most widely used method of donating bone marrow is a peripheral blood stem cell donation (PBSC). You have to visit the hospital 4 days in a row to receive injections to stimulate the production of stem cells. On the fifth day you will be connected to a cell-separator machine which collects stem cells from your blood through a vein in one arm, returning the blood to your body through a vein in your other arm. This takes about 4-5 hours and may need to be repeated on the next day.


General info on what bone marrow is and what a donation can help:

Bone marrow is a spongy tissue which is in the hollow centers of the bones. It contains stem cells which can produce three important type of blood cells: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets (which help stop the bleeding).

If someone has a marrow failure/leukemia/cancer of the lymphatic system or certain genetic blood and immune system disorder, after the donation and if the transplant was successful, the new bone will begin to make healthy blood cells and the person receiving the donation will start to get better.

Only 1 in 3 people have a close relative with matching tissue type for donation, for this reason man bone marrow registers have been set up listing people who are willing to donate bone marrow if requires and can be a match for the other 2 people from 3. When the donation is needed doctors can search the register and find a donor with a matching tissue needed. You can find your national bone marrow register for sure with a bit of googleing.

You can share this info, may be someone wants to do something nice for others for Christmas, not just buy stupid superficial presents, becoming a donor could be a great present for someone and give true meaning to unconditional love what Christmas should be really about...

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