Yesterday, I joined the National Marrow Donor registry, to donate bone marrow and/or peripheral circulating blood cells, which are stem cells in the blood which produce blood cells.
The donation process, of course, is much different than a simple whole blood donation, but the screening and tissue typing was quite simple. I just filled out about three pages of personal information, most of which was emergency contact information, and gave 4 mouth swabs.
Race and ethnicity do play major roles in transplant tissue matching, so there is a desperate need for people who identify themselves as Black or African American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino to join to potential donor pool.
So now there’s a tiny bit more Native American DNA in the registry powered by performancing firefox
I may never get called to donate, but I feel good about being available. And if I do ever donate, I immediately join the elite bunch of blood and tissue donors who get invited to the annual Donor Recognition dinner, which I was lucky enough to attend with my mother (a 10 gallon blood donor) last week. More on that later 
