Maine Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Bone Marrow Donation?
Has anyone done this? Or at least added yourself to the registry? I've been thinking about it for a while and wanted to see if anyone has had any experience.
Re: Bone Marrow Donation?
I've been on the registry for about 10 years now. A classmate's sister (and my sister's classmate!) actually was called up to donate-- she said it was not the most pleasant experience, but she knew she was possibly saving someone's life and the staff made it as comfortable as possible and it didn't take much of her time. She has no regrets.
Even before I decided to become a nurse, I was impressed with how much of a need there is-- especially among African-American folks (not a lot of donors on the registry). I met a man this past year who had his entire marrow switched out to cure his Leukemia and it worked! He looked FANTASTIC and I thought he was about 25 years younger than he actually was. He was at the tail end of his year long cure. Coolest thing ever-- his blood type changed!
Anyhow, I highly recommend becoming a donor. And the National Donor Registry's web site is chock-full of information-- age and health restrictions, the process, etc. Just google National Bone Marrow Registry.
I've been on the registry for 15+ years but have never been called.
It's actually much easier now than it used to be. When I signed up, you had to get 2 vials of blood drawn; now it's just a cheek swab.
The actual donation is a lot easier now, too. In many cases, they can harvest the bone marrow cells with apheresis (where they hook you up to a machine and filter your blood before returning it to you -- it's similar to the double red cell blood donation, if you're familiar with that). Occasionally I think they still need to do a hip puncture to harvest the marrow which will leave you with a very sore hip for several days but it's a small price to pay to potentially save someone's life.
I feel the same way...I kind of want to be called, but feel like it's a strange thing to want!