Bone Marrow Donor Drive in honor of Melissa Ruffino

1,891 Views | 10 Replies | Last: 9 yr ago by Orlando Ayala Cant Read
cocolo45
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AG


In October 2014, after months of extreme fatigue and abnormal blood tests, Melissa Ruffino '04 was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. After two cycles of chemotherapy and four months of recovery, in the early morning hours of February 7, 2015, Melissa underwent a bone marrow transplant using peripherally-collected stem cells from a matched unrelated donor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Chi Omega, Melissa's sorority while a student at Texas A&M, and FarmHouse are sponsoring a bone marrow drive in Melissa's honor. It is being held at the Chi Omega House on Athens Drive in College Station on February 27th from 2pm to 6pm. Bethematch.com is FarmHouse Fraternity's national philanthropy.

If you are between the ages of 18 - 44, please consider signing up to be a bone marrow donor. Melissa's donor underwent peripheral blood stem cell collection, a virtually pain-free procedure and the most commonly requested method for transplantation. A simple cheek swab is all the registry needs to sign you up. Like Melissa's donor, you could be asked to be a critical piece in a patient's search for a cure from leukemia, lymphoma and other blood disorders.





No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
C XX I
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Been a registered donor for a while. There's NO reason to not register; if for some reason you can't give when you're matched, you can decline.
KidDoc
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This is something I would like to do and I've researched it but taking 20+ days off work is just not possible for me sadly.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
C XX I
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...20+ days off of work? To swab your cheek? I'm confused.
cocolo45
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If you are matched with a patient and get chosen to be a donor, there is a commitment to get some labs drawn and a screening process. Once it's "game time " you would have to come in to a clinic daily for a week for an injection, then get hooked up to a machine to collect the cells at the end of the week. I'm not sure where the 20+ day figure comes from.
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C XX I
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Yes, but you have no idea what will be going on in your life and where you'll be when/if you get matched. So that's no reason to not register, especially since the 20+ days seems so far off.
chucktheaggiejeweler
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AG
If matched, you do not miss 20+ days of work. You absolutely do potentially save live(s).

Please register today.
God's Peace,
Chuck

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KidDoc
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http://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-bone-marrow/after-you-donate/

Looks like in most cases you miss 1-7 days of work which is doable for me. However the median time for bone marrow recovery is 20 days. As far as exposure to infectious disease I am high risk for being exposed so I mostly need to dig into the literature to find out the risk for opportunistic infections to strike during this recovery phase.

Thanks for posting this though had forgotten about registering.
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KidDoc
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Looks like the main donor adverse effects are due to the stimulating drugs used prior to donation and that is not a big deal so I'll sign up. Thanks for sharing!
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
poolgirl1
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Spoke with Be The Match today as I am a potential match. Recovery time may consist of a sore hip for a few days. This depends on which method is used to harvest bone marrow. 75% of the time the stem cells are removed from a vein in the arm. Seems worth it to me if someone's life could be saved.
TheAlarmGuy
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Amen!!!!
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Orlando Ayala Cant Read
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Been a donor since my sister was diagnosed with Leukemia in 2010.
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