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Oct 31, 2009 7:18 pm US/Central
Bone Marrow Donor Registry Drive Held For Boy, 13
ROCHESTER, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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Joining the registry is painless. There are no needles. Registrants rub four cotton swabs on their inner cheeks to leave cell samples.
CBS
Lorretta Dickes is really proud of her son Will.
"He's been gung-ho," she said.
Until recently, Will Dickes has been an active 13-year-old with a passion for video games and snowboarding. He was diagnosed about a year and a half ago with lymphoblastic leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.
"This would save my son's life. Right now, we are pretty much just taking treatment to keep him in remission and it's something that he really, really needs," explained Lorretta.
Finding a bone marrow match for Will is especially tough, since he was adopted from Korea. They don't know where to find his biological relatives and there are few Asians in the national bone marrow registry.
"Most of the time when you match a patient, they're someone of the same ethnic group, because our typings are inherited just like our skin color and eye color and hair color," said Steve Lovelace with the
Be The Match Registry.
The Korean Heritage House in St. Paul stepped in to hold a drive for Will. They also put the word out in the Korean-American community. Amy Hong is also an adoptee and wanted to help.
"We need to support one another and be there. And he's so young and so much life ahead of him," she said.
Joining the registry is painless. There are no needles. Registrants rub four cotton swabs on their inner cheeks to leave cell samples.
Right now, there are about 7 million people in the bone marrow registry. But the odds for a patient finding a match can be anywhere from 1 in 100,000 to one in a million. Every registrant means a greater chance for saving a life.
"It just seems like a really good thing to do, and when we found out about it and found out how amazingly easy it was, it's just kind of a no-brainer really," added Richard Baker.
Experts say donating bone marrow is not necessarily painful. Many donors go through a process similar to giving blood instead of taking out bone marrow.
Bone Marrow Registry Drive for Will Dickes
Saturday, Nov. 7, from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
St. Francis of Assisi Church
1114 Third Street SE
Rochester, MN 55904
507-288-7313
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