'Public Service Announcement'

As I walk with a couple of people contending with various forms of canser, I want to nudge the small crowd that reads this blog of two life-giving deeds one can do.

Join the National Marrow Donor Program. From 5-19 May, you can join for free. Go to the link to find out more information. All it takes is giving a small blood sample. Here's some info from their web site:

On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are searching the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry for a life-saving donor like you. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. For many of these patients, a transplant may be the best and only hope of a cure.

We work to provide hope and deliver a cure to all patients in need. With your support, more patients can access the treatment they so desperately need.

For a successful transplant, the tissue type of a bone marrow donor or a cord blood unit needs to match the patient’s as closely as possible. Special testing determines whether a patient and bone marrow donor or cord blood unit are a good match. The closer the match, the better for the patient.

Because tissue types are inherited, patients are more likely to match someone from their own race or ethnicity. Adding more donors and cord blood units from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to the NMDP Registry increases the likelihood that all patients will find the match they need.

Your heritage can make all the difference. If you are from one of the following communities, you are urgently needed as a bone marrow donor or cord blood donor:

* Black and African American
* American Indian and Alaska Native
* Asian
* Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander
* Hispanic and Latino
* Multiple race

Right now, their registry has 11 million names (el mio incluyo). If you are over 61, your name will be withdrawn from the list for the safety of a possible recipient.

Think about it.

And the other simple thing is to give blood. Only 10% of eligible donors actually give. Having watched Naomi and other people over the years receive blood and platelets and seeing what a difference it can make inspires me to keep going back again and again. In our town at least, it's a social gathering (as it was yesterday).