1

Been registered for about 12 years and came up as a match once.  Donated bone marrow and met the recipient after a year.  So far, he's completely cured of Leukemia more than 5 years later.  Great program and people.  Plus, I got two free t-shirts... made me forget all about the discomfort of donating (okay, it didn't, but it really wasn't that bad and definitely worth it.)

I encourage everyone to register.  It's just getting blood drawn once, then more testing only if you are a preliminary match.  You can decide to stop at any time (but you probably won't).

I still want my tour since I'm registered and will have voted for MP.

2 Stashiu3, that's incredible! How nice that you got to meet the recipient. Thanks for sharing that.

3

Btw, the needle in the hip... is actually about 150-200 pokes.  They can only draw out about 5cc from each puncture, then they poke a fresh hole for more.  There were two docs... one on each side.  It's not painful during the extraction, but there is some discomfort for the next day or so.  They really take good care of you though and treat you well.

4

You're quite welcome... it's a great program. 

They won't let you meet or give you any identifying information about each other for at least a year.  This is in case the transplant doesn't take I guess.  Then, if you both agree, they will facilitate a meeting.  It was rather special and the staff was lined up in the hospital hallway clapping for both of us.  We went to lunch after and talked for several hours.  A special experience.

5

I did it years ago.

Funnily enough, to get laid. I used to date a girl who ran a Red Cross center.

 

I too still want my tour.

And, since I give blood regularly (that girl was really hot), the tour should be conducted by alexthechick(If she really is a chick) wearing nothing but the boots or the shoes (her pick) from last week.

6

And yes, I bought a metric crapload of parentheses years ago and I'm trying to use them up (I didn't realize how many I had bought).

7 Uh-oh. Did Pixy accidentally pull the plug while ironing?

8 Yeah, site's all fucked up, lemme see what's going on, wallaby probably chewed through a fucking wire again...

9 Should be fixed now.  We're moving to a new wallaby-proofed server today, also.

Which I tried to do a couple of weeks ago, but ran into some wombats...  Uh, problems.  Wombat-shaped problems.

10 Just finished testing the new server setup, and it's all systems go for the move.

It will happen at 6AM GMT - about 85 minutes from now.  We will be down for about half an hour while I reload the database; I need to do that to sort out any corruption that the recent glitches may have caused.

Apart from that, nothing at all should change.

11 And we're all moved and hoppy happy (paws fingers crossed...)