On October 19, Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa will host the 10th annual Celebrating Life Reunion. Colleen Chapleau, associate director of the Iowa Marrow Donor Program and Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at UI Hospitals and Clinics, talks about the celebration:
What is the Celebrating Life Reunion?
It’s a gathering of people who have fought hard to overcome a life-threatening illness, and those folks that were with them to assist in the battle. We gather to rekindle friendships and celebrate the beauty that we see in everyday life.
Who is invited to attend?
These are folks who have battled leukemia, lymphoma, and other life-threatening diseases through a blood, stem cell, or marrow transplant at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. We also invite people who have donated their marrow or blood stem cells in the hope of saving a life. We combine them with staff members who have worked hard to help these folks.
Why bring donor and recipient families together?
We bring them together because we have patients who have been transplanted 20 years ago or even more, and they come and they sit across the table from folks who are going through transplant, or gone through it recently, and they can talk about what helped them get through that transplant. Each year we have a patient talk about their experience, how they got through it. We have a donor talk about why they decided to join the National Registry and the experience they had in being a donor; and in some cases being that only person identified in the world who could help save one particular life.
We have staff members talk about what it’s meant to them to have extended a helping hand to those who have been in this battle and to be there through the ups and downs of this transplant. And the reunion is highlighted each year; we bring in a patient and a donor to meet for the very first time. This is a family and their loved one who had a transplant who didn’t have a match in the family and found somebody that they weren’t related to, somewhere in the world, that matched them and they get to finally meet face to face.
How many patients do not find a suitable donor match within their family?
It’s pretty surprising, actually. About 70 percent of the people we see need a transplant for their best chance to survive – they won’t have a match in the family.
If there is not a match within a family, what are the next steps to find a bone marrow match?
If we don’t find a match in the family, the next best place to look is among people of the same racial background. We inherit our tissue type like we inherit our eye color or our height, so we go to the National Registry. People from around the world are registered there. They’re healthy folks; people like many listening today that have heard about the need to be registered and decided they would be willing to donate some blood cells if it would save somebody’s life, and they get tissue typed and they join that registry.
How easy is it to be part of the bone marrow donor registry?
It’s really simple. It involves completing a consent form, and then we’re going to have them swab the inside of their mouth with a special cotton swab, and that is sent off to a national lab for tissue typing, and then they’re in the registry.
Once part of the registry, what happens next?
It the persons tissue typing appears to match that of a patient in need of a transplant, that person would be called and asked for additional testing to determine, if in fact, he is that one special match that would be an integral part of saving a life.
If someone would like to become part of the bone marrow registry, how would they go about doing that?
It’s an amazing program. They can simply go online www.iowamarrow.org or call us, at 319-356-3337. People that have joined and donated have told us it’s one of the most significant memories of their life. They remember it like the birth of a child or a wedding. It’s a day in their life where they are given an opportunity to save the life of someone else.
How many families are you expecting to participate in the Celebration Life Reunion?
Our families love to come back for this. We’re expecting several hundred – it’s really a wonderful event.
Anything we would be remiss if we didn’t mention?
No, just that I’d encourage those listening to consider being a marrow donor. They may in fact save a life. |
