Many times match samples can be taken when a donor gives blood at a brick-and-mortar blood donation facility. Just let the phlebotomist know, and s/he will take one additional tube of blood and send it off. That’s how I registered for the Be the Match program back in 2002ish.
Praying for you @mom24boys.
@shellz and@ Helimom74- thanks for the information. I’ve been thinking of doing that but didn’t know really where to start.
My S just registered with Be the Match on Wednesday – his school had a drive. He really hopes he gets a phone call to donate. I thought of you, @mom24boys , when he told me he had done it.
@Mom24boys hugs and prayers. You guys deserve a break for sure.
Good thoughts to @Mom24boys and family. It helps to keep the minor disappointments of life in perspective. D’s team lost their semi-finals yesterday and, suddenly, another phase of life is over. But life goes on.
@Mom24boys sending good thoughts your way!
About Be The Match, they do make it easy to enroll at blood drives. I signed up 12 years ago, though, and have never gotten a call. I know I’m still on their list because they send regular update forms.
To all with sons, if they have appendicitis-like pain, have them checked out ASAP. It could be testicular torsion which if not treated within 8 hours can lead to the loss of the testicle. We were lucky when this happened to S '18 last year. He thought he could “tough out” the pain and when we got him to the ER 12 hours after the pain started, they said that there was still 10% blood flow to the testicle unlike many cases where blood supply is cut off–without that 10% it would have shut down and died. The urologist told me to tell all parents of boys; they’ve seen too many cases where the boy and/or parents have waited it out and then it’s too late to save the testicle. It’s most common in young teens but can strike at any age.
About distances, we’re 155 miles and 3 states away from D’s school but with traffic it can take 4-5 hours (we’re on the edge of NYC and will have to go through some busy areas to get there.)
D’s school doesn’t have XL twin beds, yay! Thanks to all for the storage ideas, we’ll do the bed risers so that stuff can fit underneath.
@Felicita , glad you survived the Stanford-Yale bounceback–not quite as bad as my “trifecta” idea but it can’t have been easy either.
@Mom24boys , we had that exact same ER visit about 2 weeks ago. After 8 hours in the ER, finishing up at 1 am, they were finally able to rule out appendicitis.
I’m glad it was the same with your daughter.
For those on the registry…THANK YOU! For those considering, THANK YOU! Getting “the call” about being a match is really quite rare, unfortunately. But when you do, it’s an amazing opportunity. Imagine, only YOU have the power to give a child another birthday, or a dad another chance to watch his kids grow up. Pretty powerful motivation.
And one last plug…if you are a minority, you have extra reason to get swabbed. The majority of registrants are of Caucasian descent. Your pool of likely matches is much, much smaller. Your match, should you ever need one MUST come from a like genetic pool. (I’m probably not saying this correctly…but if you are of Chinese descent, your donor will need to have the same ethnic make up, etc).
I’m not 100% sure if you can still join via a blood donation…what I do know is bethematch.org will send you a swab kit in the mail for free. Because tissue typing takes $ they do ask for a voluntary donation. Not mandatory, but nice if you can swing it.
So glad I checked this thread today…you guys rock.
It is always good to check out anything that seems like it might be appendicitis no matter what your sex or age. In less than 24 hours I started having symptoms, got diagnosed, and had an emergency appendectomy just before Christmas. People think it mostly happens to young men (a friend of mine at a private high school says they are used to diagnosing their students) but it can happen to anybody. A friend of mine had years of unexplainable pain and it turned out it was due to massive abdominal scarring from a burst appendix she never knew she had.
I’m in the bone marrow registry but now that I’m elderly (well, relatively speaking) I’m unlikely to get a call. Great to hear that they are recruiting at schools!
@Mom24Boys I’m glad it wasn’t appendicitis and I’m sorry you have to go through all the rest of this. Take care, and don’t be afraid to lean on us if you need to vent.
Yes - I was going to mention to register especially if you are a minority or multiracial. My kids are triracial, so who knows, they could match with virtually anyone 
As for feeling down or life getting tougher, this is what I turn to:
http://www.graeters.com/our-flavors-signature-chip
They even have a reduced sugar (not sugar free just lower carb) variety. I do say that the troubles of the world “melt away” when I get some black raspberry chip (apologies to those who are lactose-intolerant). Their blueberry pie is very good too and part of the proceeds go to charity.
We can get it locally now, near NYC, but anyone can buy it online:
http://store.cincyfavorites.com/graeters-ice-cream-c19.aspx
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1993074,00.html
This is why it is critical to get more diversity on the registry.
My kids are 10 nationalities. And we managed to bank cord blood for one of them, could not for another due to complications. That banked cord blood is kept for us, by paying an initial (1K) and annual ($100) fee, but also is in a national registry in case anyone else matches. There is enough for us and for several matches (even one would be a very small chance of occurring).
IMHO, they should require cord blood banking after every birth unless someone opts out of it. It is literally taken from the cord after it is cut, ab. Imagine how many lives might be saved, yet people go on and on about organ donation, which has a fear of “early harvesting” and concerns about the condition of the organs…
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/features/banking-your-babys-cord-blood
It’s kind of LOL that the article says it is “simple and painless” - it’s silly to say painless when the cord is completely removed from mother and baby when the cord blood is withdrawn…
It is prohibitively expensive for many families. I agree banking is wonderful. I wish it could be offered at little to no cost.
From what I understand, the fee for a public cord bank is zero, it just requires planning:
http://bloodcell.transplant.hrsa.gov/cord/options/donating/index.html
Very interesting to see if anyone went with public cord banking, and then needed the cord blood, and the bank was able to find their match… You’d think it would be possible maybe probable?
I meant private banking, wherein the cord blood is accessible by the donor’s family. It does have a cost.
The principal at my son’s school registered maybe 2-3 years ago and got a call within a few months. He recently heard follow-up news on the patient (who lives in Germany…we are in TX) who remains in remission and is enjoying the incredible gift of extra years with his sons. My S had already decided to do the swab test and register when the BTM drive was announced, but the principal’s sharing his experience with the senior class absolutely sealed the deal for him. 
So cool! I would be thrilled to get a call!
@Shellz - Thanks for posting about The Be The Match program. My DH had a bone marriw transplanr 18 years ago. He is Puerto Rican and the minority underrepresentation has been a problem for a long time. The minority community has been historically apprehensive to donate.
You are partially correct on the nationality having to match to be considered a “perfect” donor. The initial testing of the sample tests for 4 antigens. You are statistically most likely to match someone of your ethnicity but it really depends on what is way back in your gene pool. If you match on the first 4 antigens, then they do additional testing on 2 more antigens and look to at how many more “sublevels” (for lack of a better term) you match on.
I have been called as a match twice so my 6 antigens are known. But on the more detailed testing, I was ruled out as the “best” choice.
All that being said, they can do a transplant if someone is less than a 6 antigen match. But if they do, they have to remove the T-cells (or partially remove them) so that your cells don’t attack your body. If the T-cells are not removed, you can develop graft versus host disease and your organs can shut down. A small amount if GVHD is good because it kills stray cancer cells, but too much is bad.
3 antigens used to be the fewest they would work with. My DH had a “perfect 6 antigen match” through the registry, but the donor declined to donate because she only wanted to do it for a friend - not an anonymous person. So I encourage people who sign up to BE SURE they would be willing to donate for anyone they match. You can!t even imagine the devastation to a famiky when they tell you there is one perfect match out of millions - only to tell you the person is not willing.
Long story short - my sister-in-kaw matched on only 4 antigens. She was the only hope. So they did a T-cell depleted transplant. DH was given a 20% chance to live at one very prestigous hospital and a 45% chance at another hospital. We rolled the dice and went with my sister in law and the 45%. DH won and has been cancer-free ever since!
@Mom24boys - Never lose hope. Numbers are just numbers. The will to fight, positive attitudes, a lot of prayers, and a great support system go a long way!! They have come A LONG WAY with treatments!! I am here whenever you need to be pepped up. I have been there and I understand!
I have also been on the donor list since sometime in the 1990s and will encourage my kids to also enroll.
My 2012er has his cord blood banked. It was free to do it, and we pay $50 a year to keep it. We almost cancelled since we really weren’t sure of the benefit after 21 years-weren’t sure if it was still “good”. But in the end, we kept it. That son is biracial, but being that each “race” is a mixture of other backgrounds, we thought it would be a good idea to do the cord blood. I wish we’d done it with the others since they seem to have much worse health problems than the oldest.