[mausmish]

I recently learned the identity of my bone marrow donor, what a wonderful experience! She kindly gave me permission to post her words about her experience as an incentive for others to donate. I posted this in my transplant thread and my personal blog but thought it was important enough to repeat here:

“My [bone marrow] donation experience was wonderful – I received so much support from every person that I encountered throughout the process. I live in SW Washington – our home is actually on the Columbia River which borders Washington and Oregon so I’m about as far south in the state as you can go! I had to go to Seattle, which is about 3 hours away, on 3 separate occasions for screening, pre-op and the procedure. The procedure itself was uneventful. Post-op, I recovered very nicely. I anticipated that it would be extremely painful and was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I feared. It took about a month or so for me to return to my normal energy level. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and have encouraged everyone I know to sign up for the donor registry. My husband and I had signed up about 5 years before I was called as a potential donor. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get on the registry – just provide a cheek swab and you are good to go! I honestly don’t understand why anyone who is able, would not sign up to be on this registry. The discomfort/inconvenience a donor goes through is nothing compared to the gift that they can give. Many people I knew were skeptical about me doing this and would say, ‘I could never do something like that,’ and that is just so hard for me to understand.”

To donate, visit the Be the Match at http://marrow.org/.