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Brandyn Harvey knows first-hand how sports, coaches, and contemporary athletes with a cause can change the trajectory of your life and the lives of others. This 30-year-old former NFL player for the Atlanta Falcons was set up to give in a personal way through sports.
During his freshman year at Villanova, he joined the Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation while playing football for Coach Talley. This program ─ “Get in the Game. Save a Life” ─ is “designed to educate college football players and their peers about the ability to save the lives of people diagnosed with life-threatening blood cancers through marrow and stem cell transplants.”
At Villanova, Brandyn played alongside Matt Szczur, who also registered as a potential donor. A few years later, Matt was called to donate to save the life of a young girl in a different country. The call came in after Villanova won its first national championship and Szczur was being scouted by all 30 Major League Baseball scouts just before the Major League Baseball draft.
Despite the personal stakes and timing at play, Matt went through the selfless act of donation to save a life. Watching a fellow athlete like Matt go through the process left an imprint on Brandyn and set in his heart a commitment to follow through should he ever be called as a match.
Although only about 1 in 430 U.S. Be The Match Registry members go on to donate to a patient, Brandyn received calls twice to donate. The first match didn’t move forward after the initial testing was completed. However, in late 2017, Brandyn was given the opportunity to try again.
According to Be The Match®, there are two methods of donation: peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) and bone marrow. The patient’s doctor chooses the donation method that is best for the patient.
- PBSC donation is a nonsurgical procedure and the most common way to donate (80% of donations are completed this way). For five days leading up to donation, donors are given injections of a drug called filgrastim that causes blood stem cells to exit the marrow and enter to the bloodstream. Some of the donor’s blood is then removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming stem cells. The remaining blood is returned to the donor through the other arm.
- Bone marrow donation is a surgical, usually outpatient procedure. Donors receive anesthesia and feel no pain during the donation. Doctors use a needle to withdraw liquid marrow from the back of the donor’s pelvic bone.
Because of Brandyn’s history with football and the concussions he suffered, the doctor handling the donation requested the more extensive, surgical donation procedure to ensure his safety. Even with the additional commitment, Brandyn didn’t hesitate to donate his blood stem cells. He stated, “At the end of the day, I thought about the greater good I was doing it for, and the pain didn’t matter too much.”
In fact, being a donor through Be The Match, is helping Brandyn fulfill his purpose of helping others.
What many people may not know is for diseases like leukemia and other blood disorders, like sickle cell, a cure exists. There are more than 30 diseases that can be treated or cured with a blood stem cell transplant from a healthy, matched donor.
Brandyn described the pain of donation as being “equivalent to falling on your butt, with slight soreness, but nothing too bad.”
Brandyn is an ideal donor because he’s young and healthy. Eighty-five percent of the time, transplant doctors request donors like Brandyn who are in the 18 to 44 age group. This is because research has shown that blood stem cells donated by younger donors produce better transplant outcomes.
Also, Be The Match is looking to expand the ethnic diversity of donors to better meet the needs of those who can be helped by a transplant.
In an interview at Morehouse College, Brandyn expanded thoughts on this initiative with these comments: “African American donors are rare … Obviously with Be The Match, we are spreading diversity. We are a diverse company and … we are spreading diversity and hoping to bring other ethnicities up to speed and hopefully give more people a chance at life.”
The reason for increased diversity is simple. The genetic traits used for matching donors and patients are inherited. Individuals listed on the registry are more likely to match patients with similar ethnic ancestry. The more diversity in the registrants, the more patients Be The Match can serve.
For greater diversity and matching, Be The Match has a need for registrants who identify as any of the following ethnicities (but everyone is encouraged to join the registry):
- Black or African American
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian, including South Asian
- Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
- Hispanic or Latino
- Multiracial
Joining the registry is easy. It simply takes a cheek swab ─ an easy action to potentially cure someone’s cancer.
If you’d like to join Brandyn as a potential donor for someone in need, visit this link.
Joining the registry offers hope against diseases that may otherwise be fatal.
Not every potential donor who registers will be a match, but Brandyn remarks being the match among one of his greatest achievements. “It’s an honor and it’s very special to be able to help someone like that and be the only one who can help them in that way.”
Don’t forget, joining the registry is super easy – all it takes is a simple cheek swab.
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This is a featured post by site partner Be the Match.
Photo: Screenshot
The post In Today’s Give and Take World, Do You Have What it Takes? Brandyn Harvey Certainly Does! appeared first on The Good Men Project.