Bone marrow donor - an appeal

[Deleted User]

Just a quick comment on the donation process .. to join the register takes on a very small amount of blood - about a teaspoonful, maybe two; for the Anthony Nolan they send you a tube so you just go to your GP to get the blood drawn.

If you're selected as a matched donor, and get asked to donate stem cells, the procedure depends on what the clinicians have asked for. About half of all stem cell donations these days are what are called peripheral blood stem cells. You would take a short course of hormones to release stem cells from your bone marrow into the blood, and then you basically get blood taken from your arm, the cells removed and the rest of the blood put back in again. This is probably the easiest for the donor, with few side-effects reported - some fever or muscle pains in a few cases.

The bone marrow collection is done under general anaesthetic, so you'd have to spend the night in hospital, and some people have reported back pains. I would guess that you would be advised not to run for about a week after a bone marrow collection.