Give A Spit, Save A Life

ARHAM QURESHI tells how you can save lives by giving up 15 minutes of your time this afternoon.

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CU Marrow recruitment event

Wednesday 1st May, 3pm-6pm, Emmanuel College Bar

With the Easter term finding its feet, and the sun threatening to rear its shy head on a somewhat permanent basis, we here at Cambridge University Marrow have decided that we are not content with the amount of saliva already collected. We want more! For those of you not familiar with us (and even for those that are), this will seem like quite an odd sentiment, but one which is undeniably true. For fear of being branded ‘strange’, allow me to explain.

Cambridge University Marrow is a student-run branch of the Anthony Nolan Trust, an (inter)national charity aiming to raise awareness, funds and most importantly recruit people to the bone marrow register. This charity regularly matches two donors with recipients every week.

A stem cell transplant can be the last chance of survival for people who require it (mainly children with leukaemia, but it could be adults with other diseases). Currently only one in two people find a match with someone on the register; the other 50% usually end up losing their life, simply because their potential donor may not have heard about the charity and signed up. Unfortunately, there may only be one person in the whole world that’s a match for any particular patient, which is why (if you all do the math) we need ALL of you (and your friends) to come.

This is where you can help. By coming to a recruitment event, you can sign up to the register by expectorating in a cup – provided by us, of course. If you are that 1/1000 person found to be a match you can give someone the best gift they will ever receive: Life.

Concerns about donating are documented all too often, but what you probably didn’t know is that over 90% of people who donate, do so in 5 hours and without ever having had their bone marrow exposed to the bright lights of a hospital.

Without wishing to labour the point (and get all teary-eyed on you), you could be the only hope of life for another person, so break the shackles of the captivity of revision, top up your vitamin D and get yourselves down to Emma Bar between 3-6pm this afternoon – it may just be the most precious gift you’ll ever give to anyone!

With that idea firmly resonating through your head, I think it would be fitting for me to end with our somewhat-overused-but-still-very-catchy motto:

GIVE A SPIT, SAVE A LIFE

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Keen to get involved by joining the CU Marrow committee? Email Arham.