Bone marrow registry finds me

About nine years ago, I was at a health fair in Hawaii and joined the national bone marrow donor registry. I donated some blood, filled out some paperwork and promptly forgot about the whole thing. After all, my new husband and I were newly stationed in the land of sun and sand, my job offered me lots of time off and we had just left a cold and frigid Alaska winter, to our mutual delight.

My cat, on the other hand, was not so delighted. He spent 30 miserable days in a cement Hawaiian quarantine cell, where he was subjected to daily tours as the biggest cat they had ever had. My 26-pound cat stands out in the crowd a bit. He’s not fat — just big boned and fluffy. Very, very, fluffy. But this column isn’t about him. I’ll save his titillating and exciting feline life for another column.

To go back to the bone marrow registry, I have a confession to make: I was extremely bad about updating my information. As in, I completely forgot to do so. We moved from Hawaii to Kansas, where we acquired another (much skinnier) cat and an infant and then the new baby boy and I spent a year at my parent’s house in Palmer while my husband went to Korea for a year. Upon his return, we moved into a new house in the Valley and welcomed another new baby, this one a girl, and then my husband promptly left for a year-long tour of duty in Iraq. Our oldest cat remained extremely fluffy and big boned and the smaller cat still hasn’t gained much weight, although that might be because the fluffy cat eats more than his fair share. The kids, one the other hand, won’t stop growing and I still forgot all about updating my info on the national bone marrow registry.

Until last week.

Friday afternoon, my grandmother in Palmer called me, very concerned. She informed me that someone had contacted her asking for information about me: How to contact me, my address, my phone number and more. My grandmother was extremely reluctant to divulge any of this, especially because she had no clue who was contacting her.

Turns out, I had listed her as a contact on my initial information sheet those many years ago, and contact her they did.

After Saint Francis Medical Center out of Oahu managed to convince my grandmother they were not stalkers or illicit information seekers, they got my phone number out of her and called me.

It turns out I am a potential bone marrow match for a 20-year old girl.

Within 24 hours, I got a much more detailed information packet in the mail from Hawaii and promptly filled it out and sent it back. They then transferred my information to Seattle (the closest donor center to me) and I was next contacted by the Puget Sound Blood Center out of Seattle in order to set up an appointment to get retested at the Wasilla Blood Bank.

If I am the best match for this young woman, I will head to Seattle to donate my bone marrow.

All this happened within six days.

I will go to Seattle if I am a match because Alaska does not have a National Marrow Donor Program Center. Several states lack these centers, Alaska being merely one of them. The national program actually pays for a donor to travel to the center to donate their marrow, covering all fees involved.

I don’t know if I will be the best match for this young woman whom I have never met. I don’t even know if I will make the top five for her. All I know is the potential match exists, and that someone at a bone marrow registry spent hours trying to track me down so that I could be made aware of the situation.

I’ve since done some research about what donating marrow entails and it’s a pretty simple procedure for the donor, mainly because the anesthetic makes a donor completely unaware of anything happening: Go to sleep, say “bye-bye marrow,” wake up.

Bone marrow will regenerate itself, and everything donated will be back inside a donor within about six months. You’re supposed to take it easy for a few days, or even a week, after the operation, and that’s about it for the donor.

Pretty simple act to potentially save someone’s life.

But one thing I have noticed about the registry is that they still need volunteers — desperately need volunteers.

The chances of a volunteer being called to donate are exceedingly slim: My mother has been on the list for more than 20 years and never been contacted. I think she might have had a bit of marrow-envy going on when I proudly told her I’d been called as a potential match.

Although Alaska lacks a center to actually perform the procedure to remove the bone marrow, it’s incredibly easy to get on the national registry: Simply walk into the nearest Blood Bank and ask to be on the registry.

The Blood Bank in the Valley is located off Westpoint Drive in Wasilla.

Just remember to update your information when you move, or have really understanding contacts who always know how to find you.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, was deployed to Iraq and returned home in December. She writes every Sunday about life at home as a wife and mother.