Sophia and her family have started a social media campaign to get the word out. The hastag #Swab4Sophia is not only helping Sophia find a donor, but also raising awareness about mixed race bone marrow donations. In the U.S. National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) less than 3% of donors identify themselves as mixed race.
Becoming a bone marrow donor is an easy process. The NMDP encourages people ages 16-44 to join the Be The Match registry. They will send you a kit where you will swab your cheek and once you send the kit back to them they will put you on the list to be a bone marrow donor. About 1 in 540 members of Be The Match Registry will go on to donate bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells. This is why these registries are so important because they give hope to patients that need them.
When you become a bone marrow transplant donor, it’s something similar to a blood donation, except it takes 5 hours. The blood that is extracted from one arm into a machine separates the cells that the recipient needs, the remaining blood is returned through the other arm. Sometimes a surgery is performed to extract liquid marrow from the back of a pelvic bone, but it’s done with a local anesthetic.
It may seem like a scary process, but it’s definitely worth it when you can potentially save someone’s life.
