How to become an amazing person/citizen

I'm sure many of you have heard about the 11 year old girl that was a performer in The Lion King on Broadway, passed away this week from Acute Meyloid Leukemia. This is the same type of leukemia that both my Mom and my nephew had. This is the reason for our fundraiser each year as well.

I bring this up because it being the off season, what better time to find a registry drive in your area? Round up a bunch of your friends and get yourself on the list. Often times they are paired with a blood drive.
I understand that many people are uncomfortable about giving blood, not being a fan of needles myself. For the Bone Marrow registry, all they have to do initially is a cheek swab. Here is the link to the FAQs, it will likely answer many of your questions.

There is also a link to find a place to register. At some of the facilities there is a cost to join, but it is tax deductible. You can often find blood drives that have the Bone Marrow Registry at the event as well. Typically joining the registry is free if you donate blood as they use the money from the blood drive to pay for the registry fees.

While you are there, and if you are one of those people that is very comfortable giving blood. You should take the time to find out about platelet donation as well. This process takes more time but has less of an impact on your system as they only take your platelets and put everything else back.

Donating through Red Cross and other places is obviously perfectly fine. Yet from what I understand, it might be more beneficial to your local hospital if you find out if they have a system in place "in house". Children's Hospitals seem to always have a system like this in place.

For the record, I wasn't on the bone marrow registry until I needed to find out if I was a match for my nephew. I ended up spending quite a bit of money at that point because I needed a full listing and it had to be done in a hurry. (I was not a match, he had no match world wide)

As for donating blood, I have a marker that makes it look as if I have had Hepatitis. I guess they don't take the chance even tho this isn't the case, so they would discard my donation. One of my friends here at work says his wife has a similar issue and can't donate.
My dad on the other hand has O- blood, meaning he is a universal donor. So he is a card carrying member of the red cross and has donated gallons and gallons of his blood over the years. If you happen to be O-, it's definitely a very cool thing if you step up to the plate and make this a regular thing that you do.

I am hopeful that maybe other readers/bloggers might find this important as well. Go out, get themselves onto the Registry and then spread the word by talking about their experience with the process or by simply linking to this post for others to read.

Thanks for reading.