IndiaPost.com - The thrill of being a bone marrow donor

The following is the story of Poonam. She saved the life of a patient in need of a bone marrow donor.

In the summer of 2000 I trav-eled from Michigan to attend a Young Jains of America Convention in Los Angeles, California. Concurrently there was a Bone Marrow Drive occurring at the convention. I signed up to be a part of the registry without giving it a second thought, partly because I was enthralled by the stories of how difficult it was to find a match within the South Asian community and partly because the process of registering was so easy to do. As the years went by, I was reminded that I was part of the National Marrow Program every time I saw there was a drive held somewhere in my community.

In all honesty I thought the possibility of being a match for someone was so slim that I never really wondered what it would be like to be a donor or how I would react if I ever did get the call. That all changed in June of 2006. I was neck deep in wedding planning. The day I thought would change the rest of my life was only six weeks away and my world revolved around endless phone calls with my bridesmaids and my wedding coordinator making sure all the details for the "big day" were hammered out.

Late one June evening my phone rang and it was my dad. He had a serious tone about him that led me to think something was wrong with him or my mom. Instead he told me that he had just gotten off the phone with a Kristeen Singh from Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches and was told that I was a potential match for someone in need of a bone marrow transplant. Kristeen wanted to know if he would give her my current contact information. He hesitated not knowing what my response would be and said that he needed to talk to me first and actually ended up taking down Kristeen's information and said I would get in touch with her.

As he told me all of this, I was overcome with emotions. I couldn't believe that I could possibly have the opportunity to save someone's life. This held a lot more meaning to me than I think it would for most people. In 2002, I had been in a horrible car accident and was lucky enough to sustain only minor injuries. God had decided to save me but take the life of another. I always wondered why, why did one of us have to die and why did I survive.

Now I knew. Despite everything else going on at that time, there was no question in my mind if I would donate or not. Over the next several days I researched what it actually meant to be a donor, what the process would be like and what the typical timeline was from getting that call to actually donating. During this time, I spoke with Kristeen and she explained the entire process to me. I felt a bond to the recipient.

Which in itself is ironic given all that I knew about this individual was that he was a 47-year old male who needed a PBSC type donation. For the next month while trying to juggle wedding planning and a busy work schedule, I went to numerous doctors' appointments and was poked and prodded multiple times. The NMDP needed several blood samples to test to see if I was truly a match. In the clinical world, that meant did at least 8 out of 10 of my HLA antigens match the recipients. After what seemed like months instead of weeks of waiting, I found out that my antigens were compatible with the recipient's.

It was official; I was a match and was able to donate. I was so excited but at the same time nervous about the process and all the implications of it. I was given the opportunity to change my mind or reconsider my decision to be donor. The thought never crossed my mind. What did cross my mind was how was all of this going to logistically happen.

My wedding was only one week away. Although the recipient needed the transplant as soon as possible, the lead time needed for both of us to be ready for the donation was at least five days. As the donor, I would need to take Filgastrin shots for the five days leading up to the donation.

This drug would help stimulate my stem cell count. As the recipient, he needed the five days of extensive chemo therapy to clean his system and be ready to accept the new stem cells. We decided to start the process a few days after I came back from my honeymoon. The regimen of daily Filgastrin shots was not that bad. I was a bit more tired than usual but nothing that caused me to change my daily routine. The day of the actual donation was unlike anything I expected. My parents and husband came with me to the hospital.

They inserted a needle in my right arm to extract the blood that would then be filtered for through an aphaeresis machine. The machine would filter out the PBSC and I would get my blood back through an IV inserted in my left arm. Given my five foot stature and petite frame, I was told that the process would be done over two days for five hours at a time. The first day was difficult in that I suffered through a migraine and wasn't taking well to the sleeping meds that the nurses were administering, but the second day was a breeze.

Of course there were many uncomfortable moments through the process, but nothing so unbearable that I wouldn't donate again. It took a couple of weeks to regain my energy. Now the waiting process had begun. Naturally, I wanted to know if the recipient survived or not. I called the NMDP on a weekly basis. In December, I got the news that I had been waiting for. I received a card from the recipient that was routed through the NMDP letting me know that he was doing well and thanking me for being his saving angel.

He was my angel as much as I was his. He needed me to get a fresh new start on his life and I needed him to gain closure on a chapter in my life and have renewed sense of purpose. Since then, I have helped out with some bone marrow drives in the Chicago area and come into contact with families who are looking for a match for one of their loved ones. When they hear my story, they are given hope that maybe someday they will find a match.

When potential donors hear my story they are inspired knowing the possibility of being a match is not as slim as the statistics make it out to be.

(Information provided by Kristeen Singh and Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches.)