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Student-organized bone marrow drive yields gift of life
5:37 p.m., March 13, 2007--Two years is a long time to wait for good news, so when it came to light that a bone marrow drive held on campus in December 2004 had resulted in a donor match, UD participant Karla Boyd took a minute to react. Then a sophomore active in UD's chapter of Hillel, Boyd organized the drive and generated campus publicity for it after learning about Gift of Life, a nonprofit organization that collects and registers bone marrow samples from possible donors. But like a true philanthropist, she'd then quickly forgotten her efforts. “I'd heard about Gift of Life and was interested in what they did,” Boyd, a senior biology major from Athens, Ohio, said. “They want to get as many people as possible into their registry, but focus on the Jewish community in particular, because so many bloodlines were cut during the Holocaust. No one gets turned back, but because Ashkenazi Jews have a harder time finding donors, certain types of blood are in high demand.” After learning about how samples were collected for donor matches When word arrived by e-mail on Feb. 16 that former UD student and drive participant Pauline La Bella had donated two liters of bone marrow, that importance carried particular weight.
“I think I was in the Perkins Student Center when I noticed a flyer for the drive,” La Bella, now a senior nursing student at SUNY Orange, said. “It was a cheek swab, and it wasn't that bad, and I totally forgot about it until last year when I was contacted to be a donor.” That match later fell through, but La Bella, whose AB positive blood contains markers and antibodies that are in high demand, was called again, and on Feb. 13 she went into surgery at a New York City hospital, where two incisions were made at the base of her spine. “It was painful, but it was worth it,” La Bella, who knows nothing about her bone marrow recipient other than her age, gender and condition, said. “I have a little sister who is the same age as my recipient, and I think about all the things she's doing right now, and how happy she is, and how terrible it must be to be sick. So many people who hear about what I've done say, 'You're so brave,' or 'You're such a hero.' But that's not it. How could I not do it?” Although she hopes to meet her donor in a year, La Bella said that would be icing on the cake and nothing she really expects. “If she wants to meet me in a year, she can, but it's really up to her. I just feel good having had the chance to give someone else a chance. “My contact at Gift of Life said, 'You only get to do this one or two times in your life, and most people never get to do it.' Most samples are kept in the bank until the donor turns 62, and they never make matches. I was called twice.” Article by Becca Hutchinson
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