Bone marrow donation drive, May 13 and 14, at Children's Memorial

Become a bone marrow donor.  Join the National Marrow Donor Program’s (NMDP) Bone Marrow Donor Registry and save a life.

In honor of Mother's Day on May 11th, the NMDP is sponsoring a “Thanks Mom” campaign that will cover the cost of tissue typing for anyone who wants to join the registry. (Ordinarily the costs are $52, but in this drive, the tissue typing is free!)

On any given day there are more than 6,000 people searching the NMDP Registry for a donor.  Signing up is easy: Fill out a health-history questionnaire and have a painless swab of your inner cheek so that your tissue typing can be done.  If you are match to a patient, more testing will be done before donation.

Donation is done by either peripheral-blood stem cell donation (where blood is removed from a donor's arm, passed through a machine that takes out the stem cells, and the remaining blood is returned to the donor) or by a surgical procedure that removes stem cells directly from the bone marrow under anesthesia.

Dates: Tuesday and Wednesday, May 13 and 14

Time:  9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where:  In the main hospital, the Doctor’s dining room (located within the cafeteria on the lower level).  Parking stickers for the hospital's main parking garage will be available in the Doctor's dining room for $4.

Who can participate:  Any healthy person 18 to 60 years of age.

Questions about donating:  Contact the National Marrow Donor Program by calling 1.800.MARROW2 (1.800.627.7692) or visit www.marrow.org.

Questions about the donor drive at Children's Memorial?  Contact Eileen Smyth at 312.802.1152 or esmyth@childrensmemorial.org.