Everyone knows someone who has been affected by cancer. For those wanting to do something about it, an opportunity will be available this week at Pruitt Field during the Mid-American Conference field hockey tournament.
Thanks to Ohio’s Jen McGill and Ball State’s Katie Norris, a campaign was organized to encourage tournament attendees to register for the Be The Match foundation.
According to its website, Be The Match is a “nationwide community committed to helping patients in need of a marrow transplant. (It) helps raise funds to add potential marrow donors to Be The Match Registry.”
There will be a booth open at Pruitt Field today and tomorrow where individuals can register and donate. On both days, it will be available 30 minutes before the first game and during halftime of the second game.
For students, there is no cost to sign up.
McGill’s interest in bone marrow donation began when former Bobcat Marcy Dull organized a registry following the death of her brother. Soon after McGill got swabbed, she was notified that a match had been found. She went through with the surgery on March 1, 2010, and said the experience changed her life.
McGill never met the person who received her marrow. “But to be able to give somebody a chance at living when they had no chance at all,” she said, “it kind of made me appreciate what I have in my life.
“I feel the more people that hear about me doing this, the more interested they will be in getting signed up.”
All McGill knows about the recipient of her bone marrow is that he was a 66-year-old man with leukemia. Unfortunately, McGill said, the patient became infected and later died.
Nevertheless, she received a letter from his wife after McGill wrote a letter to the man’s family. She described the correspondence as “very fulfilling.”
The event at Pruitt Field is not the first registry drive McGill has organized. During the summer, she put together a couple similar events near her home of Louisville, Ky.
“It’s really expensive to sign up by yourself,” McGill said, “so these drives give people the opportunity to pay no cost or a low cost.”
Before McGill went through with the donation operation, she talked a lot with Ohio coach Neil Macmillan about the athletic ramifications that might come as a result.
“She had to go through some pretty serious surgery,” Macmillan said, “and I think it was pretty painful from what I understand.
“You have to totally commit to what you’re doing. … Jen is a very caring person in that way. She was very happy to go through it.”
me811508@ohiou.edu
