Bone Marrow Debate Goes National

Bone Marrow Debate Goes National
NY Times, Nov 3 – Is the Ban on Selling Bone Marrow Unconstitutional?
. . . NOTA’s criminal prohibition of donor compensation has now just been challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice. On October 28, a group of plaintiffs (including people with deadly blood diseases) sued Attorney General [...]

What Are the Odds?

I’m feeling pretty good these days but I have a 50/50 chance of needing another bone marrow transplant in the next two years.
There are around 70 diseases for which a bone marrow transplant is a viable treatment and in only a few instances—such as my lymphoma—is an autologous transplant an option. That’s where the [...]

A Fellow Plaintiff

 Bone marrow donors needed to save Doreen’s daughters.

 

Springs man joins fight to allow compensation for bone-marrow donors

Check out the story about the bone marrow lawsuit in today’s Colorado Springs Gazette. Here’s how it begins,
For most people, it wouldn’t matter much whether you called bone marrow an organ, as it’s medically classified, or a bodily fluid, which is what it looks like.
But that distinction is at the heart of a lawsuit filed [...]

Lawsuit Will Save Lives

When I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2008, filing a lawsuit that could help extend my life was the last thing on my mind.
But desperate situations don’t call for desperate actions; they call for commonsense ones. One thousand Americans die each year waiting to find a matching bone marrow donor, and [...]

Progress Report

I’m two months post stem cell transplant and doing well, especially compared to others whose stories I’ve read. I’ve much to be thankful for:

I’m sleeping without the aid of pills for the first time in a year.
My hair is growing! It looks and feels like dryer lint.
I’m exercising and running again. True, I’m slower than [...]

Donating Bone Marrow

The number of people in the U.S. on the various organ transplant waiting lists topped 100,000 in 2008 and almost 50,000 more are expected to sign up this year. But more than half these people will die before a transplant becomes possible due to the shortage of donor organs.
Compare the size of the waiting list [...]

30,000 Visits to OPEN Mike

This is a small number of visits on the net and some mindless YouTube videos get that many in an hour but I’m humbled by the 30,000 times people have come by to see how I’m doing and what I’m thinking.
Thanks for praying, caring and sharing.
I’m four weeks out from my bone marrow transplant and [...]