Marrow donor required

Jason Gross

How do you ask a stranger to save your life? There is no protocol – and I’m not even very good at asking for simple favors – so forgive me if this gets awkward.

My name is Jason Gross. I am a 40-year-old man – a father and husband – who in August was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, Myelofibrosis, which has only one potential cure: a marrow stem-cell transplant. Without that, I shall not survive. And that’s where the “stranger” comes in.
Since an exact DNA match is required, the ideal donor for any recipient would be a full sibling, someone whose DNA pattern was provided by the same two parents. But even a full sibling has only a 25 percent chance of being a match – and, in any event, I do not have a full sibling. That’s why I must turn to a marrow registry.

Yes, it is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but, miraculously, these “needles” do turn up and matches are found. The best odds of finding a match are within one’s own ethnic group, in my case, someone of eastern European Jewish (Ashkenazi) heritage.

My illness causes a scarring of the bone marrow, which renders it unable to make hemoglobin. And, since hemoglobin is the part of the blood that circulates oxygen throughout the body, I am now frequently winded and fatigued. I have always been physically very active – I’m a passionate outdoorsman – but these days, I find even simple tasks exhausting.

I am now living from transfusion to transfusion in order to replenish my hemoglobin but, obviously, this cannot go on indefinitely. When I was first diagnosed, I was getting a transfusion every two weeks. Now, just more than two months later, I get a transfusion every week, sometimes more. At some point ... well, you understand.

This has all taken a psychological toll too, as it has made it harder for me to help my wonderful wife, Malayna, take care of our amazing three-year-old son, Kluane. They are the lights of my life, and I cannot bear the thought of them having to go on without me.

I know what it’s like to lose a father at a young age. My own dad passed away at 37 from a brain tumor. This was two weeks before my bar mitzvah. To this day, when I look at photos of what should have been, to that point, one of the happiest events of my life, I see myself and my family standing ashen-faced, forcing smiles for the camera as our hearts are breaking. I know the haunting, hollow feeling that carries right through adulthood as a result of losing a parent as a child. And I am determined that my son will not have to endure that.

Thinking of him, and of Malayna, makes it easier than I thought it would have been to ask so big a favor of strangers. Please, if you aren’t already in a marrow-donor registry, you can sign up with Gift of Life, whose primary focus is on Jewish donors and recipients. They share their database with the major match-finding registries in Canada, the United States and the world; so, essentially, if you register with one, you register with them all. There is also a registry through the Canadian Blood Services.

The procedure is simple. They’ll send you something resembling Q-Tips, which you’ll use to swab the inside of your cheeks, then return by mail. And, yes, I’m afraid they will ask for a financial donation, as they incur a cost for the DNA testing. The stem-cell donation itself requires no surgery – it’s not unlike giving blood.

Registrants generally stay in the databank until their 61st birthday, when they are automatically removed. But you can ask to be removed at any time, and you may change your mind about donating at any point along the way. Only about one in 200 registrants is ever selected to be a match. Even if you’re not the match for me, however, you could be the match who one day saves another life. Can there be a bigger mitzvah?

Full information is available on the Gift of Life website at giftoflife.org or the Canadian Blood Services website at onematch.ca.

Thanks so much for reading this and, whatever you decide, for considering my request. Wishing you and your families happiness and good health throughout this new year – and always.

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