Molly Murphy '13
Molly Murphy ’13 realized something needed to be done when her sister’s best friend, Mandi Schwartz, passed away from leukemia because she was not able to find a donor match.
Schwartz was a close family friend who played ice hockey in Yale University, and even visited Conn several times to watch Murphy’s lacrosse games while she was in remission. Murphy describes her as “the most unselfish person I had ever met,” and went on to explain that “even when she was sick what bothered her the most was the emotional pain her sickness caused to others.”
According to Murphy, just knowing Schwartz “made you want to be a better person,” and inspired her to hold a bone marrow registration drive in Schwartz’s memory, to increase the number of people on campus who are registered to donate.
Coincidentally, when Murphy began planning the drive she found that one of Conn’s professors, Michael James of the Education Department, also wanted to start a marrow drive in the hope of finding a match for his brother-in-law.
The campus community has been enthusiastic and helpful in the formation of the drive. Because this is the first marrow registration drive on campus, it has served to educate people about the process of bone marrow donation.
Murphy explains that many people held the misconception that the process to join the registry can only take place at a hospital. However, all that is needed to get in the donor registry is several cheek swabs and filling out some paperwork. This can be done in a marrow registry drive, like the one held at Connecticut College last week, or it can be done through the mail.
In fact, Murphy said that some people who arrived after the drive had finished were given forms to fill out and mail to the donor registration, and they will then receive a swab kit to use that will enable them to join the registry. She further explained that anyone who wants to donate can log onto the National Marrow Donor Program’s website, fill out the paperwork online and finish the registration process through the mail.
In order to get registered, the donor must fill out paperwork with various forms of contact information to ensure that they can be found, because they will remain on the registry as potential donors until they are sixty-one years old.
Although it is important to understand that the implication of being a registered donor means that you are willing to undergo the procedure, no one is required to donate once they are found to be somebody’s match.
Any situation or extenuating circumstance, such as pregnancy, sickness or even changing your mind, is an acceptable excuse to not donate at a certain point in your life.
Most people are unaware of the changes that have occurred in bone marrow donations. Although donating bone marrow previously meant it is necessary to undergo a minor surgical procedure, now most donations are completed in a process almost identical to the procedure to donate blood.
Murphy explains that she hopes Conn will be more likely to register once this information becomes widely known. Because of this, she has concentrated on educating the community about the process to become registered and the way the procedure to donate has become much simpler and easier.
In order to educate the campus community while encouraging people to join the registry, Murphy has relied heavily on word of mouth. During a hockey game last week, Murphy organized for both teams playing against each other to wear orange tape around their sticks and socks in order to raise awareness about leukemia. Additionally, on the day of the event she handed out flyers in Cro explaining the procedure and what it means to be a marrow donor.
Because they are so young and healthy, college students are the best donors. Murphy understands the importance of college student’s contribution and realized one of the main purposes of this event was to lay the foundation for an annual event. In fact, she plans to have another drive later this semester because “this drive helped clear up many misconceptions” and would like to give the opportunity to more people to join the registry.
Murphy says that she hopes that the misconceptions many people held about bone marrow donations have been cleared up, and that more of the campus community will be willing to become a donor. •
