I just donated bone marrow (or more accurately stem cells) today at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. I was originally contacted back in November about being a possible bone marrow match for a 66-year old woman with leukemia. (I signed-up for being in the network back in my undergraduate days at Virginia Tech.) It took a few months, but after several tests and check-ups, it turned out I was a positive match and asked to go ahead. The process has been a tremendously rewarding one and I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to be a part of all of this. I finished the procedure ~ 1 PM this afternoon and if my stem cells are not in the recipients body by now, they should be by early this morning.
The process included 5 days of getting injected with filgrastim, which causes the body to overproduce stem cells and eject them into the bloodstream. Today they hooked me up to a machine that took blood out of one arm, removed the stem cells, and then pumped it back into my other arm. It took about 4 hours to process everything. After the procedure was done, they packed the “collection” into a cooler and got it underway to a plane for the leukemia patient. It’s likely that she has already undergone the process to receive the cells into her body as I type this. If not, she’ll receive them tomorrow morning at the latest.As for my part, I was warned that I might have some potential side-effects and discomfort from the injections and procedure, but ended up having no problems whatsoever. The biggest problems I experienced was getting stuck three times before they finally got the IV in my right arm (I think the ladies there were testing me to find out how tough a guy I really was :) ) and then having a VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY full bladder by the end of the process today. (They cheated – I tried not drinking too much prior to the procedure, but they gave me lots of fluids intravenously.) All of this was extremely minor and well worth the discomfort. Lord willing, a life will be saved.
I want to say a very special thanks to Mom and Dad, who were with me the entire time. Just like when I was a kid at the hospital, they stuck by me through it all and spoiled me rotten afterwards. Mom and Dad, I love you both and do not say enough how much you both mean to me and how much I appreciate everything you have done for me.
Also, I want to say thank you to all the ladies at NIH – to Sarah who coordinated everything and to my nurses (Tracy, Sue and Monica) who gave me my shots and took care of me while I was on “the machine”. All of them were great and went overboard making sure I was getting taken care of through the whole process, even coming to my apartment to give me the shots. Thank you to all of you for your care and concern for me and for the work you are doing to try to save the lives of others."The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” – James 5:16
Lastly, I want to say a special thank you to all of my friends and family who have kept me in their thoughts and prayers. I strongly believe the lack of problems I had was caused by the Lord hearing your prayers and watching over me through all of this. He truly is the Great Shepherd. I love and thank all of you for your concern for me.
Please continue to keep the woman who is receiving my stem cells in your prayers. She’s either now or soon will be getting them transplanted into her system. My part of this process is over and was very easy. She still has a long way to go on the road to a hoped for healing and recovery. I hope to hear about how she is doing in about 30 days or so. If you’d like to know specifically how to pray for her, you can see some of the effects of her preparation here, the procedure she’s going through, and what she can expect afterwards.
If you’d like to learn how to help, the National Bone Marrow Donor program has instructions on how to join the registry, contribute financially, and a list of other ways to help. You can also find out some more info about bone marrow transplants here.
MORE THOUGHTS
Blessings of Modern Technology
I am truly in awe of the capabilities of modern medical technology. Without recent advances, none of this transplant would have been possible. Not long ago, I would have had to undergo a much riskier procedure to donate, with a large needle getting inserted into my hip to remove bone marrow in order to collect stem cells for donation. A little prior to that, there would have been no hope for a cure for the patient’s leukemia. Prior to that, probably not even a diagnosis of what’s wrong. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to donate in a very painless, relatively risk-free manner with high hopes of significantly impacting the life of another.
I spoke to a friend tonight whose mother recently had a double lung transplant. I am still in utter awe that things like this are possible. I am excited to see what new technologies will emerge in the future.
Charles Stross summarizes this well when he says:
… if I had been born at any time prior to 1900, my life expectancy, assuming I survived infancy at all, would be 40-45 years -- the latter 20 of which would be rendered miserable by blindness. Between 1900 and 1940 I might have made it to 60. Only the fact that I was born as recently as 1964 has allowed me to live a comparatively normal life.Read the rest of his thoughts on this. They are very good! (Hattip to Brad DeLong.)
Also, click here to view a BBC article on how advances in nanotechnology may help with reconstructive brain surgery. (Hattip to Instapundit.) Who knows what's coming next?
Power of Prayer
I am a firm believer in the power of prayer and it is encouraging to see this in action today. I credit my relatively painless and problem-less ordeal to the power of people praying for me. Although I don’t always receive the exactly what I ask for, I genuinely believe the Lord hears and answers all of our prayers. Please pray for the 66-year-old leukemia patient who is receiving my stem cells. I believe this is the most powerful way to help her right now.
Impact of People
I find the people who have influenced me the most in life are the ones who have taken time out to live for others. That’s the kind of person I strive to be. As I think to everyone involved with what happened today – from Mom and Dad to Sarah and the nurses, none of this could have happened without any of them. Also think about the doctors, scientists and engineers, patients and donors who have gone before that have endured much worse than I did that allowed doctors to learn better techniques like what they do today. I signed up to be in a long-term continued study in hopes of helping to carry on this legacy.
If I remember correctly, a friend talked me into going in to donate blood when I was an undergrad and while I was there, I signed up to be in the bone marrow donor network. Without the influence of that friend, today might not have ever happened.
Emotions
Other than my bladder almost bursting, today has truly been a joyous day. It is so heartwarming to know that I had the opportunity to make a difference in the life of another person in a real, tangible way – possibly helping to give them the gift of life. I don’t think the full impact of that has hit me yet. I am also in awe to know that it was nothing that I merited, but solely because of the way God made me (literally!) that allowed me to participate in this process. This both humbles and delights me!
I got very choked-up when the doctor came over to talk to me about my donation getting transported to the patient later in the day. As the reality of what was happening hit me, I felt overwhlemed thinking about where this would be going and what it would be doing. I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything.
3 comments:
Brian, your ideas intrigue me, and I may look into this myself. Just curious though why, as an economics student, you didn't ask the question of Why there is no market for bone marrow? Why do we have to rely on altruistic donations for this?
Great questions, Jeremy! Here are some of my initial thoughts on this:
The idea of donating parts of our body seems very "unnatural" to many people. I have found this to be true even more so overseas (Japan for example) then it is here in the US. I think people have a natural reluctance to thinking about a part of ourselves going into another person. Maybe this is because it blurs the physical distinction between ourselves and others? I don’t know. Organ and blood donation is becoming much more culturally acceptable in the US. However, I think this perception makes this kind of issue particularly subject to fear of "evil corporations" making profits off of unsuspecting people. For whatever reason, both perceptions have been prevalent in most societies – fear of organ donations and distrust of profit-makers.
I think the US has been fortunate in that many volunteer and religious organizations have done a great job at promoting the benefits of organ/blood donation. I don’t think this would have been successful without an appeal to altruism. This “disarms” the feeling of some “evil motive” behind the donation and (rightfully) makes the person donating feel as though they are doing something good for others. By making this a virtuous act, it makes it much more palatable, increasing the rate of social acceptance. In economic terms, many people gain utility from the increase in utility of others. (That’s Walter Williams’ definition of love.)
The question would then arise about why a market doesn’t emerge after this become socially acceptable? I have several thoughts on that also. First, a large infrastructure of organizations, volunteers, donators and recipients has already emerged that has vested interests in maintaining the system that currently exists. Any attempt at reforming the current system should probably work with this infrastructure rather than directly against it or else face strong opposition to change. Because the virtues of altruism have been a strong part of the public accepting the idea of blood/organ donations, anything that runs counter to this will probably be reacted against strongly and accused of trying to “corrupt the system” and “bribing people to sell organs when they’re desperate for money”.
Because of this, there is a dilemma of trying to shift over to a more market-based system of organ/donation collection. While I think a market-based system would in the long-run work better at matching up more donors and recipients, many existing organizations might loose money by trying to shift over to this operational paradigm. This might cause a short-term drop-off in donations as it moved from a purely altruistic operation to a market-based one. I can imagine many volunteers who currently run marathons, donate hours working in offices and clinics, and who sign-up to be in donor networks might refuse to be part of this if it shifted over to a for-profit enterprise.
I think one of the biggest obstacles has been the failure of economists to adequately communicate ideas about markets to the public. We often get so caught up in notions of “self-interest” and “utility” and forget how foreign and selfish these words can sound to those outside the profession. The concepts behind them are wonderful and can benefit society tremendously. I used to be very active in a number of non-profit organizations and it was the promise of markets being able to help others that attracted me to economics. We need more people in the profession communicating ideas about the virtues of markets to the public.
One idea that I think might help enhance the donation process, using ideas from economics include combining ideas from the non-profit and for-profit sectors. For example, establish a charitable organization that “rewards” for people who are chosen as organ matches. You could offer rewards of different values depending on the scarcity of the organ needed. This should attract more people to sign-up to be in donor networks and work with, rather than against pre-existing organizations. (I think the biggest problem right now is not enough donors, not a lack of infrastructure to handle increased donations.)
Something I don’t know are the statistics for how many people die each year because of failure to find donors and the statistics for probability of finding a donor if more people signed-up to be in various networks.
Just a few thoughts on some excellent questions. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on this.
Brian:
I was thinking of a simpler explanation, such as: there are laws against it. Of course, that is only a proximate cause, and you jumped right to the more ultimate causes. For blood donation, there are definitely laws against receiving payment. I assume the same is true of marrow. However, it is not true for plasma, which I have personally "donated" for cash payment.
As for the ultimate causes, you do make some valid points. But I believe these same objections apply to a make larger variety of activities than just body part and substance donation. So the explanations don't necessarily explain what we're investigating. I think.
Jthaddeus:
This is an important, if common objection, to organ donation. However, as an analogous case, there is a huge demand for human labor. And it is conceivable that "corrupt governments" (or even firms) could engage in mass production of human beings for sale into slavery. But both law and legistlation (in the Haykeian senses) have arisen to mostly prevent this. I am confident similar social norms would come about for organs (or marrow).
Post a Comment