Point Loma Nazarene University’s Wellness Center held a special bone marrow drive Wednesday, Jan. 31 at the Nicholson Commons Recreation room patio.
The drive was created as a benefit for PLNU student Cynthia Colello, who is suffering from leukemia, a cancer of the blood or bone marrow.
“We always have a higher turnout with a patient-focused drive,” said Sarah King, spokeswoman for the San Diego Blood Bank, the organization in charge of the drive.
According to King and Jim Coil, director of the PLNU Wellness Center, an estimated 500 people showed up to get tested, including PLNU students, staff, faculty and friends.
“I’ve done a lot of drives,” King said, “and I’ve never been so impressed. We weren’t expecting that big of a turnout.”
Participation in the drive was limited to people between ages 18 and 60, with no history of asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart or circulatory disease. Participants also had to be within 20 percent of the ideal weight for their height and age as set by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and willing to donate to anyone who needs a transplant.
During the drive, participants had to fill out a short health questionnaire and sign a form stating their understanding of what it means to be in the registry. Participants were then given four mouth swabs to scrape the inside of their cheeks.
The swabs will be tested by the San Diego Blood Bank to determine each participant’s tissue type.
Bone marrow drives occur throughout the county all year long. However, in order to join the registry, participants may be asked to pay a fee to cover tissue-typing costs, or the cost of laboratory testing the cheek swab sample for participant tissue type. This payment is tax deductible.
Tissue-typing costs range from $52 to $96, depending on where and how the donor joins.
If a donor is identified as a match for a patient, all medical costs of donation are covered. A patient family, community groups, corporations, The Marrow Foundation or other sponsors can cover some or all of the tissue-typing costs. The Marrow Foundation of San Diego covered the tissue-typing costs of all the participants of PLNU’s marrow drive, allowing students, faculty and staff to be tested for free.
Those students who may have missed the PLNU drive, or other community members willing to donate, are eligible to be tested for free at any of the bone marrow drives in San Diego County, including Wednesday, Feb. 14, at Mission Estancia Elementary School, 3330 Calle Barcelona, in Carlsbad from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., Sunday, Feb. 18, at the National City Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus, 125 Palm Ave., in National City, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 24, at the 16th annual Heritage Day Festival and Parade at the Market Creek Plaza near the corner of Market Street and Euclid Avenue in San Diego from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Residents can also register at any of the San Diego Blood Bank donor centers. For location information, visit www.sandiegobloodbank.org/contact_us.php.
Approximately 80 percent of all patients do identify a potential match on their preliminary search; however, not all of the 80 percent of patients who identify an identical donor at the preliminary search will necessarily go on to transplant. Similarly, some of the 20 percent who do not immediately have a match may identify one at a later time or be transplanted with a less or partial match, according to the San Diego Blood Bank Web site.
Results for the samples collected at the drive usually take six to eight weeks, according to King. However, an application can be filed to expedite the process. Colello’s family has filed an application to receive speedy lab results. However, it is not yet known if their application will be approved.
For more information on donating bone marrow, visit www.sandiegobloodbank.org/bone_marrow/ or contact Sarah King at (619) 400-8209 or via e-mail at [email protected].
