StemCell Therapy

Muskogee area residents will have an opportunity to be a hero and make a life-and-death difference in someones life Tuesday when a Be the Match Registry donor drive is hosted by the Muskogee Education Association.

For people between the ages of 18 and 44, the event will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday in the lobby of the Fine Arts Auditorium at Muskogee High School. The event is free and is being held in honor of Muskogee teacher Angela Gideon and her daughter, Nevaeh Oswalt, said Michael Walcutt, president of the association.

We urge people to stop by, fill out a form and be tested for possibly being a potential match, Walcutt said. The test is a simple self-administered mouth swab.

Gideons daughter had a transplant match found through a registry.

This is something Angela is very passionate about, and its a way for the association to support our teachers and causes they feel are important, he said. Nevaeh died in 2011 but lived longer than anticipated after receiving a transplant that enhanced her life.

Gideon became aware of just how important finding a matched donor is after Nevaeh was born with a rare genetic disease called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH. When Nevaeh turned 8, doctors began the worldwide search for a transplant donor, Walcutt said.

That search revealed just one person in the entire world who was a match for Nevaeh, he said. While that transplant went well, Nevaeh died in 2011 from multiple complication of her disease over the years and trying to recover from the transplant.

Gideon is a math teacher at Alice Robertson Junior High School. Walcutt said she responded a couple of months ago when the education association dispatched word that its members were interested in supporting causes important to local educators.

As an association we try to support our educators, Walcutt said. This is so important.

Tuesdays event is being held in conjunction with the Be The Match Foundation through the Oklahoma Blood Institute, said Institute spokeswoman Audrey Womack.

For thousands of people with blood cancers like leukemia or other diseases like sickle cell anemia, a marrow transplant is their only hope for life, Womack said.

She said the reason donors between the 18-to-44 age limit are sought is because they are proven to provide the best outcomes should a transplant be needed.

For people showing up at Tuesdays drive, Womack said there is no charge. For people older than 44, she said they can still be donors but they would be required to go in person to the Oklahoma City location of the Oklahoma Blood Institute and would be required to pay a $100 fee to register.

Womack said that should a person be matched with another needing a marrow transplant the process is similar to donating blood platelets, plasma or stem cells with the donors blood withdrawn through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that will collect only blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to the donor in the other arm.

If you go

WHAT: Be the Match donor drive.

WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday; the entire process takes from one to 15 minutes.

WHERE: Muskogee High School, 3200 E. Shawnee Bypass.

WHO: Area residents between the ages of 18 and 44.

COST: Free.

Visit link:
Marrow donor registry drive set Tuesday - Muskogee Daily Phoenix

This entry was posted on April 22, 2017 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Death by Stem Cells. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |