Hospice holds donor registration program

GREENSBORO – yearly, thousands of folk are diagnosed as having potentially terminal diseases that require a bone marrow transplant to live, but 70 percent do not have a donor in their family to rely on.

Eight-year-old Trevor Davis was diagnosed with a very rare illness called severe aplastic anemia, and if medicines do not work, he will likely need a bone marrow transplant.

“His bone marrow is not producing the types of cells that people who do not have that diagnosis produce every day. So without those cells, it is very tough to be able to live normally,” Vivian Shidler, executive of the Clinical Research Development at Moses Cone Cancer Center, said.

But most people who need a marrow transplant for survival are only able to get it through an unrelated donor. So in a plan to get more people to sign up, Moses Cone Infirmary held a free bone marrow donor program registration Thursday.

It’s kind of a sacrifice you give perhaps to someone you do not know, but again you could be saving a life,” donor Leslie Davis said.

The method only takes one minute and you could eventually save a life. And if you actually qualify as a match, the donation process for some can be very similar to giving blood.

For more information on the nation’s Marrow Donor Program, visit Celebrity Breast Cancer Survivors website.