have you registered to be marrow donor yet?

I just heard from Helen, who's organizing an online drive to register donors for the National Marrow Donor Program. My friends, you might not have a lot of money, or time, but you do have the opportunity to directly impact the life of someone in need. By registering as a donor, you have the chance to help a patient with leukemia, lymphoma, or another blood related disease.

I'm sure you've heard this before. These diseases can be cured through one way-- an unrelated bone marrow or stem cell transplant from the "perfect match". Because these matches are based on genetic tissue typing, the best chance of finding a perfect match for a patient is someone from their same ethnic group.

Only 30% of currently registered donors are ethnic minorities, which makes it that much harder for a minority patient to find a perfect match. And it's exceptionally difficult for multi-ethnic patients to find matches. If you have a minority or multi-ethnic background, please consider registering to help patients like:

Krissy Kobata, a 26 year-old woman with MDS and is searching for a transplant.
Matthew Nguyen, a 27 year-old man with AML is searching for a transplant.
Alexander Phan, a 4-year-old boy.

They're looking for committed donors in good general health between the ages of 18-60 who are willing to donate for any searching patient. To register, go to join.marrow.org. Be sure to enter the promo code: hkmarrow3. If you've already joined, make sure all your info is still accurate and up-to-date so they can get in touch if you're a match. What do you have to lose? You could save a life, and everybody wins.