Marrow Donor Drive In Meriden CT, originally uploaded by Aldon.

It is hard to believe, but it’s been over a month since I learned that my friend Carol has Leukemia. Over the past month, I’ve read her story on Caring Bridge. In her recent entries, she talked about being in the beginning steps of beginning to look for a bone marrow donor in case she needs a transplant.

I’ve long known that I need to go register to be a potential bone marrow donor. It’s much different than being a blood donor. There are few variations in blood types and if you donate blood, it will get used. However, the chances of matching someone else for a bone marrow donation is about 1 in 20,000. There are six Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA). I don’t know the details on what is needed to match.

So, I went to the National Marrow Donor Program website. Doing a search for places to register, I found that there is a donor drive in Meriden today, Thursday March 5th. It will be continuing until 7:00 PM at the Ben Franklin School at 426 West Main St.

Before I headed over there, I thought I would do a quick search to get more information about the drive. It turns out that there is a Facebook page for the drive. I was the 100th person to sign up. Since then, a few more people have signed up and over 200 people have responded ‘Maybe’. Over 600 people have not yet responded.

I realize that my chances of being a match for my friend in St. Louis is much greater than my chances of being a match for Manny, the person for who the Meriden drive is for. However, the odds are probably greater that if I end up being a match for somebody, it will probably be neither Manny nor Carol. However, I hope that someone will sign up for a drive somewhere to be a possible donor for Manny or Carol.

In terms of what is involved, it is pretty simple. I showed up. Filled in a form, and took what was pretty much like four q-tips which I rubbed on different parts of my cheek. I stuck the swabs in an envelope and they will get them processed.

So, there is still a little time left, so try to get over to the donor drive in Meriden. If you can’t make that, check out the National Marrow Donor Program and see where else you might be able to register.