Christopher Saving a Life

(NOTE: this is a repost from March 22, 2013 at 8:30am from widowedvillage.org)

Christopher, my youngest son, was six-years-old when we lost his father to bone marrow transplant complications. He turned 20 in January, and is a sophomore in college.

Last year there was a bone marrow drive at Lehigh University for the National Marrow Donor Program. Chris joined the registry at that time. In December we got a phone call from the registry that he was a potential match. He had further testing and he was a match for a 46-year-old woman.

He donated stem cells last month on February 7. Chris had Neupogen injections for 5 days prior. His blood was taken out of one arm, run through a machine filter which removed stem cells (and apparently a lot of platelets), and then it was returned via his other arm. It took about 5 hours.

By 2 o’clock they had finished the stem cell harvest. A courier arrived who put it in a cooler and took it to be delivered to the recipient. I don’t know the volume of what was taken but it seemed to be a lot to me. It was certainly more than the pint that one might give when one donates blood.

Chris did very well. He felt well enough to go back to campus, and we dropped him off shortly after 5.

Chris is my hero.