Donating Bone Marrow

This summer, I noticed a missed call and voicemail from someone saying they were calling from the Department of Defense. Without any close ties there, I figured it was a wrong number. They tried me back later and I picked up, ready to clear up the confusion. When I expressed skepticism that I was the right Alex Stein, though, the person on the other end told me my mother's name and my former address.

I snapped to attention. Apparently, the United States military was indeed looking for me.

Over the next few minutes, I started to finally listen and process what was going on. It turned out that in 2010, I had signed up for a program called "Salute to Life", which is a bone marrow donor program run by the DoD. This actually sounded plausible, because at the time I was interning at a federal agency (what is now called the DFC), which would explain the federal government affiliation.

Honestly, it had been about a decade and a half since I got my cheek swabbed and my name on a list, and I'd forgotten about it. I have a couple of guesses as to why. First, while I hear regularly about blood drives and try to donate from time to time, for some reason I don't see much about bone marrow. And second, at the time I signed up, the process for extracting bone marrow seemed invasive and potentially painful - so I wasn't entirely looking forward to actually doing it.

On the phone with the DoD representative, though, I coolly stated that of course I was still interested in helping the patient identified as a potential match. No way was I going to let someone who for all I knew may have been on active duty think that I was nervous about any kind of needle.

It turned out there wasn't much need to worry. As my new friend at the DoD patiently explained, my donation would be of "peripheral blood stem cells" or "PBSC", which is more similar to donating blood. According to the National Marrow Donor Program, the vast majority of donations are now done this way, with actual extraction of bone marrow (under anesthesia) used only about 10% of the time, where there is a greater concern about risks for certain patients (like young children).

Once I agreed to proceed, the next step was getting my blood tested for the strength of the match, and my results came back showing a very strong one. Once again I was asked if I was sure I wanted to proceed. I did, and I proceeded to get a physical and have my blood drawn once again - this time about 14 vials! - to test me for all sorts of sicknesses and diseases.

At this point it started to sink in - if the procedure was cleared, the patient's immune system would be destroyed by chemotherapy and replaced using my PBSCs. So I had to be healthy and ready to go - the patient was relying on it.

The tests came back clear, and we scheduled the procedure. For four days leading up to the donation, I had to be injected with a drug called filgrastim, which stimulates the body to produce more PBSCs. I self-administered the injections, though I could have had it done by a local health clinic. It was my first time doing anything like this, and I'll admit it felt a little weird to do so at first (though it didn't hurt). But tons of people do it all the time - from insulin to fertility hormones - and I got used to it.

As the filgrastim went to work, I did - as expected - get achy and a bit fatigued. As instructed, I took the maximum dosage of Tylenol during those few days, and it eliminated any actual joint pain, leaving me with only a dull achiness - annoying, but completely tolerable.

Finally the donation day arrived. I went to the New York Blood Center's collection center in the Upper East Side, where the staff were friendly and at ease. When they explained that they do this process all the time - once or twice a day - most of my residual nervousness receded.

If you haven't seen it yet, my wife Judy Yi Zhou's amazing video (watch here!) has footage of the donation (as well as the other parts of the process). The setup was comfortable and had a perfectly-positioned screen for us to watch Netflix as blood was pumped through a machine to extract PBSCs and return it to my body. The whole thing took about four hours (though I was cautioned to expect it could take eight).

When we were all done, Judy treated me to a giant bowl of noodle soup and proceeded over the next few weeks to nurture me to health with as much bone broth as I could drink. But really, other than some achiness that took a couple of days to fully wear off, I felt fine. I followed the doctors' orders and avoided exercising vigorously for a little while; I was told that my body would be fully replenished within a few weeks, and at that point, that's exactly how I felt.

A number of folks have asked me whether I met or could meet the patient I donated to. In my case, I wasn't able to do so because the patient was located in Europe and cross-border privacy laws didn't allow us to share information. But many donors can, as along as both parties consent. There's a great video about a donor who met about this you can watch here!

Overall - I'm very thankful that I had the opportunity to do this, and I hope others will be inspired to sign up too! Please feel free to reach out if you want to have any questions or want to chat about it!