Hi, I'm m3hr. You might know me personally or online through twitter (@m3hr) or IRC or something. I'm 18 and go to Columbia, and I'm from LA. This summer I was diagnosed with leukemia and I and others need hematopoietic stem cell transplants for a cure. You can read more about that here. Finding a match is especially hard for ethnic minorities and mixed-race people, because it's based on a protein marker that gets more varied as genetic diversity increases (or something, I don't understand it completely) but not blood type.
Depending on which country you live in, you should really, really consider joining your country's bone marrow registry. Also if you know anyone having a child, tell them to donate their baby's umbilical cord blood to a donor registry to save someone's life if a marrow donor can't be found!
There is an international coalition of marrow registries called Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide(and patients from one country can receive donors from another if necessary) as well as a list of each member nation's registry on the BMDW site. Each nation has its own process to join on their site. The member nation with the most donors registered is the U.S., which is where I am! Joining the U.S. registry is especially helpful to me, but any blood disorder patient around the world needs your help, if you can provide it. I'm also of Middle Eastern background (Iranian), so if you're of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean descent, we are possibly likelier to be a match. But I encourage everyone to join, for all patients who need help. Donating is a safe and painless process, and the chance of getting contacted to donate is 1 in 540.
https://join.bethematch.org/ <- This is the main process for donors in the U.S.
http://join.marrow.org/swabsocal
Another URL that does the same thing and sends the info to the Southern California branch of BTM, might be faster for me
NOTE:
The Be The Match process online can take up to 6-8 weeks, and I might be needing my donor by then (unless something else happens). If you can go to a local drive, that is likely to be faster.
I was hoping that when people joined the registry, they provided some evidence (or not, I'll probably believe you) so we can keep a list of all the kind people who joined, on GitHub. The format for posting will be as follows:
Preferred name (doesn't have to be a real name)
Date joined (in Mon DD, YYYY format)
Three-digit country code as seen on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3
URL of registry joined as found on this BMDW directory: http://www.bmdw.org/index.php?id=addresses_members&no_cache=1
An example:
Jane Doe
Jan 23, 2015
IRN
http://www.iscdp.org
with a linebreak between each entry, all going into the REGISTERED.md file! Then send me a pull request with some form of evidence that you joined and I'll merge it in and probably love you forever.
ANOTHER NOTE: Markdown requires extra linebreaks unless you're in a code block so I just made the entire file a code block, I prefer the monospaced font anyway. Please don't remove them. And please put your name inside the code blocks.
Well, it saves lives, and leukemia is the most common form of pediatric cancer. Patients need your help, and I want to raise awareness. Many of us have the privileges of wealth, status, or health, and I think maybe as a society we should think more about issues like cancer, because we are getting close to cures for many of its forms, but the donations and donors need to keep flowing. A third (or more) of the population of a developed nation will get cancer in their lifetime. We patients need and are grateful for your help. (°w°)