Great news! Montreal man is matched for bone marrow

On May 27, I wrote about the importance of bone marrow registry and donation (Bone marrow transplants - would you be a donor?).

In the post, I mentioned that a Montreal writer, Emru Townsend, was in a holding pattern while waiting for a match to help him recover from leukemia. Emru's wait was made more difficult because of his ethnic background as the son of African-Caribbean parents. African-Americans and Canadians are very under-represented in the bone marrow registry.

The good news is that Emru has found a match: Montreal man finds ethnic bone marrow match.
We do still have to wait and see if the procedure is completed, because there will be some nail biting, I'm sure, until it's all done. The donor has the right to back out at any time for any reason. That's what happened to a friend of mine a few years ago. Let's hope that doesn't happen in this case.

Now for the reality check: there are so many people like Emru waiting for a bone marrow match and some may not ever get the chance that it looks like Emru is getting. Please consider registering for and donating bone marrow.



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