28
Powell Tate bone marrow drive
Pam Jenkins
Sometimes it takes bad news to motivate us to make a difference.
One of our colleagues, Jenna Langer, was diagnosed last month with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), a blood disorder that causes bone marrow to make dysfunctional blood cells that don’t mature into healthy cells.
But there’s good news. The treatment for MDS is a bone marrow transplant, and it appears that she’s found a donor who is a perfect match.
To show our support for Jenna and to possibly provide life-saving bone marrow to another patient, Powell Tate is holding a marrow donor drive in our office next week to help build the bone marrow registry.
As Jenna points out on her blog, 93 percent of white patients find a match while African American patients have only a 66 percent chance of finding a match. In addition, Hispanic and Asian American patients also have a lower match rate than white patients. These numbers underscore how important it is for people with diverse racial backgrounds to join the registry.
Right now, thousands of patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other life threatening diseases are looking for someone to donate bone marrow and help save their life.
I encourage you to join the Be The Match Registry. It’s a simple process in which you’ll have your mouth swabbed so that tests can determine whether you are someone’s perfect match. In addition, consider a financial donation to Be The Match.
We miss you, Jenna, and we’re pulling for you!
