<i>"At the time, the only way to donate marrow was to basically have someone drill holes in your bones and drain your skeleton, which kind of terrified me. Nowadays, of course, most donations require nothing more than sitting still for a few hours with an IV watching television."</i><p>That actually isn't really true. Marrow donations still require anesthesia and a surgical procedure. In the interest of providing full information:<p><a href="http://marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.aspx#process" rel="nofollow">http://marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.as...</a><p><a href="http://marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.aspx#different" rel="nofollow">http://marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.as...</a><p>(Edit: c'mon folks...why in the world would you vote this down? It's important information to know if you're going to be a donor.)
This inspired me to register, but once again I was thwarted by the US' arcane rule banning gay men from donating. The rule applies despite the fact that I've been monogamous for ages and am tested for everything under the sun twice a year.<p>A college frat boy who has had unprotected sex with a different girl every week for the past semester can give blood/marrow, but monogamous, healthy gay men can't. I don't get it.
Canada<p><a href="http://www.onematch.ca/" rel="nofollow">http://www.onematch.ca/</a>
<a href="http://www.blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.nsf/page/E_ubmdrPKG-intro?OpenDocument&CloseMenu" rel="nofollow">http://www.blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.n...</a><p><i>The first site is supposed to be more current, but isn't rendering properly for me on Firefox. On the second site, Scroll to the bottom for the button to start the process.</i><p>UK<p><a href="http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/qa/index.asp#howcan" rel="nofollow">http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/qa/index.asp#howcan</a><p><i>It appears that you opt-in when you donate blood. I don't see mention of an at-home swab program.</i><p>Germany<p><a href="http://www.stammzellspenderdatei.de/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stammzellspenderdatei.de/</a><p><a href="https://www.dkms.de/" rel="nofollow">https://www.dkms.de/</a><p>Others<p><a href="http://marrowdrives.org/bone_marrow_donor_programs.html" rel="nofollow">http://marrowdrives.org/bone_marrow_donor_programs.html</a><p><i>(Scroll down to see the partner organizations in many countries)</i>
Shit. Can anyone post the links for other countries (like Canada) to donate? I'm signing up tomorrow.
If you want to really affect someone else's life, this is a way better way than building some web-app.
If any of you are in Seattle, and want to become registered marrow donors and potentially help save a life, there is a swabbing party tonight at the Rob Roy in Belltown.<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174595119298897" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174595119298897</a>
If you're in the UK you can register with the Anthony Nolan trust as a donor. The whole process is incredibly simple, so please do.<p><a href="http://www.anthonynolan.org/What-you-can-do/save-a-life/Online-application.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.anthonynolan.org/What-you-can-do/save-a-life/Onli...</a>
I was about to sign up, but I am disqualified due to my fibromyalgia, which they consider an auto-immune disorder. I didn't think the current research still considered it one - it's more a neurotransmitter imbalance than anything else.
A sincerely moving story. I'm already a registered donor, but this reminded me to update my address, which, like yours, was still a college dorm. If I were ever called up for a donation, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.
I signed up for the program when I read that story, and just sent my cheek swabs in (4 of them!) this past weekend... seems like a no brainer if you actually want to make a difference in the world :-)<p>I wonder if there's a decent solution on the forwarding thing with some kind of unique id as metadata on an address, so if something's important someone in possession of the old address can find you through the ID? Or maybe that's just not practical, as no one would use it/retain the info unneeded in the short term.
Thanks for sharing a touching story - a bit of quick digging came up with the <i>new</i> Canadian equivalent:<p><a href="http://www.onematch.ca/" rel="nofollow">http://www.onematch.ca/</a>
Fantastic Story! I always love to see people helping each other.<p>After a visit to India earlier in the year, to oversee development of software for my new biz, I was awestruck at the conditions people were living in. Seeing this made me want to do something to help, and therefore decided to contribute a portion of every dollar earned to build water wells in developing countries for clean water.<p>I will definitely look into this as well to help...
<a href="http://marrow.org/Join/Join_in_Person/International_Donor_Centers.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://marrow.org/Join/Join_in_Person/International_Donor_Ce...</a><p>I'm quite surprised that there are no donor centers in other countries. Are there? Most of these(or all) are first world countries - it scares me to think the chances of people in third world countries if even the ones listed here have a hard time looking for donors.
I've been telling myself I would register for awhile now. After reading this, I signed up right away. It only took a few minutes, just waiting on the collection kit.
Ouch.<p>To the extent it's still relevant in the modern world, our postal system really needs to work a little more like the phone system.<p>I can be pretty much anywhere in the US (or really, the world, if I want to pay international roaming fees), someone can dial my well-known phone number, and my phone will ring.<p>For ordinary first class mail, I should be able to generate unique ID numbers on the USPS's website, and associate them with any physical US address I wish at any time. Then I can keep one or more postal IDs pointed at the location(s) I actually receive mail at, and the scanners (virtually all mail is routed by optical scanners now, even hand-addressed envelopes) can just read the ID number and stamp on the current physical address.