2008 Woodie Awards
Save a life by donating marrow
Peggy Spencer
Issue date: 2/13/07 Section: Opinion
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by Peggy Spencer
Daily Lobo columnist
Do you remember Kailee Wells? She was in the news a few years back. Kailee is a little Chinese girl who was adopted by an Albuquerque family. When she was 5 years old, she almost bled to death from a nosebleed. This is how her family discovered that she has aplastic anemia, a disease in which the bone marrow shuts down. Kailee became a local poster child for bone marrow donation, a procedure that could save her life.
Tomorrow, Valentine's Day, you will have an opportunity to save the life of someone like Kailee. All you need to do is say "ahh." ASUNM will be sponsoring a blood drive in the SUB Ballroom, and it has invited the National Marrow Donor Program to share its space and sign people up for the National Bone Marrow Registry. But first, you should know what marrow is, why we need it and what it means to become a donor.
Marrow is a spongy substance found inside your bones. Inside the sponge live what are essentially baby blood cells. They are also called hematopoietic - blood - stem cells. Blood stem cells grow up to become red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Once they're mature, they leave the spongy nest and venture into the wild world of circulating blood, where they do their grown-up jobs. Red blood cells carry oxygen. White blood cells fight infection. Platelets make blood clots so you don't bleed to death when you brush your teeth or get a paper cut.
Just to clarify, in case the term stem cell sent your blood pressure up, these blood stem cells are not the same as the controversial embryonic stem cells. Stem cell is a general term for a cell that can differentiate into a more specialized type of cell. Blood stem cells can only become blood cells, are not used in controversial research and are taken from willing adult donors.
Most people have normally functioning marrow all their lives. But an unlucky few lose it. There are several ways this can happen. One is cancer treatment. Cancer cells divide rapidly. So do blood stem cells. Chemotherapy finds rapidly dividing cells and kills them. Hence, a patient may get cured of his or her cancer but have a whole new problem because his or her marrow was wiped out along with the cancer cells. For other people, immune deficiency diseases, like what Kailee has, can deplete the marrow.
Daily Lobo columnist
Do you remember Kailee Wells? She was in the news a few years back. Kailee is a little Chinese girl who was adopted by an Albuquerque family. When she was 5 years old, she almost bled to death from a nosebleed. This is how her family discovered that she has aplastic anemia, a disease in which the bone marrow shuts down. Kailee became a local poster child for bone marrow donation, a procedure that could save her life.
Tomorrow, Valentine's Day, you will have an opportunity to save the life of someone like Kailee. All you need to do is say "ahh." ASUNM will be sponsoring a blood drive in the SUB Ballroom, and it has invited the National Marrow Donor Program to share its space and sign people up for the National Bone Marrow Registry. But first, you should know what marrow is, why we need it and what it means to become a donor.
Marrow is a spongy substance found inside your bones. Inside the sponge live what are essentially baby blood cells. They are also called hematopoietic - blood - stem cells. Blood stem cells grow up to become red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Once they're mature, they leave the spongy nest and venture into the wild world of circulating blood, where they do their grown-up jobs. Red blood cells carry oxygen. White blood cells fight infection. Platelets make blood clots so you don't bleed to death when you brush your teeth or get a paper cut.
Just to clarify, in case the term stem cell sent your blood pressure up, these blood stem cells are not the same as the controversial embryonic stem cells. Stem cell is a general term for a cell that can differentiate into a more specialized type of cell. Blood stem cells can only become blood cells, are not used in controversial research and are taken from willing adult donors.
Most people have normally functioning marrow all their lives. But an unlucky few lose it. There are several ways this can happen. One is cancer treatment. Cancer cells divide rapidly. So do blood stem cells. Chemotherapy finds rapidly dividing cells and kills them. Hence, a patient may get cured of his or her cancer but have a whole new problem because his or her marrow was wiped out along with the cancer cells. For other people, immune deficiency diseases, like what Kailee has, can deplete the marrow.
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