Step 1: At the Drive

        You come to one of the centers, fill out some registration forms (which ask a few basic questions about your health and for the address at which NMDP can reach you), and then have two small samples of blood drawn by a professional medical phelbotomist (a medical technician specifically trained to take blood samples).

        Step 2: Joining the Registry

        Your blood is taken to a laboratory where your specific HLA tissue type is determined. Your name and the tissue type are then entered into a confidential national computer database. When a patient needs a bone marrow transplant to survive, they search this database to see if anyone in it has the same tissue type they do.

        Step 3: Preliminary Match

        If one of those patients discovers that your tissue type may match theirs, the donor center contacts you and asks you to come in for a second, more detailed typing (called DR typing) to make sure you really do match. The second test takes about 15 minutes.

        Step 4: Confirmation of Match

        If the DR match also indicates the patient and you match well, you are given more counseling and info about the process, and other health exams to make sure you are healthy enough to be a donor.

        Step 5: Deciding to Save a Life

        Once all of your questions have been answered, you, with the support of your family and friends, make the decision to become a bone marrow donor.

        Step 6: Givin' a Bit of Marrow

        The patient recieving the bone marrow transplant undergoes massive chemotherapy and radiation treatment to irreversibly eradicate her/his own diseased bone marrow. When that is complete, you check into a local hospital. Like hair, nails and blood, bone marrow is being constantly made by your body, and the amount donated grows back very quickly. You are given either general or spinal anesthesia, and the surgeon removes a tiny fraction of your total bone marrow from your hip (about 5%, or roughly the same proportion as 1 pint of donated blood is to your total blood volume (~4 liters)).

        Step 7: Sleeping it Off and Going Home

        Because of the anesthesia, usually you stay in the hospital overnight just to rest, although many donors go home the same day. You will have a little soreness in the hip, but most donors recover in a day or two, and almost all within a week. Meanwhile, the patient who got your bone marrow begins their new life --thanks to you.