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SAVE A LIFE – BE A BONE MARROW DONOR
Manish Bharadwaj is a 34 year old Design Engineer at Free Scale Semi conductor and father of a 5 year old daughter and a year old son. In July of this year, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a form of cancer of the bone marrow.
For a moment let us place ourselves in the place of Manish. The family, the children the future.
There are several others like Manish across the country who get afflicted with one form of leukemia or another and in need of a bone marrow transplant – a procedure that can save their lives and does not cause the donor any harm.
The donor has to genetically match with the recipient. There is a process in this. But the first step is to collect a little saliva sample by using a swab (such as a Q-tip) from the inside of the cheek of the donor. When an initial match occurs detailed HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) matching will have to be done. Once that matches, the donor is ready to save the patient’s life.
The genetic matching is more often within ethnic groups than without. Therein lies the important role of each one of us to save one of our own. The best is: bone marrow donation does not harm or deprive the donor in any way. The marrow is self replenishing. Thus saving a life does not cost us anything and imagine the joy we will have in saving another life.
Therefore, we urge each and every one of us to sign up for bone marrow donation. The life we save may be of our own. As we sign up, we are also signing up to receive bone marrow in the unthinkable event of our needing it.
There are two bone marrow drives that are coming up. One with the September 12th light music concert organized by the INDIA FINE ARTS and the other is the September 13th Greater Austin Malayalee Association Onam program. We do not have to wait till then. Just call up the local Blood Bank and Tissue Center. It just takes 10 minutes including the paperwork time to sign up. We are very hopeful that each Indian family will sign up.
Manish Bharadwaj
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