<story><title>My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39422660</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nom</author><text>I want to raise awareness that you don&amp;#x27;t have donate an organ to save lives. Blood cancer patients all over the world are frantically looking for bone marrow and blood cell donors. The chances for a match are very low, but if they find one the chances of success are high. So you can understand the desperation.&lt;p&gt;The thing is, an actual bone marrow extraction is only required in 10% of all cases, most of the time you only have to donate blood cells. It&amp;#x27;s painless and pretty much non-intrusive.&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dkms.de&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dkms.de&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bethematch.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bethematch.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; for more information about the subject. Costs for the match test are unfortunately not covered by health insurance here in Germany, but it&amp;#x27;s only 30€ or something in that order.&lt;p&gt;If you ever wanted to save a life, get tested.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Viper007Bond</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m literally getting a bone marrow transplant today to treat leukemia. I&amp;#x27;m in the US and my donor is somewhere in Europe. I can&amp;#x27;t thank these donation networks enough -- they are saving my life.</text></comment>
<story><title>My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39422660</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nom</author><text>I want to raise awareness that you don&amp;#x27;t have donate an organ to save lives. Blood cancer patients all over the world are frantically looking for bone marrow and blood cell donors. The chances for a match are very low, but if they find one the chances of success are high. So you can understand the desperation.&lt;p&gt;The thing is, an actual bone marrow extraction is only required in 10% of all cases, most of the time you only have to donate blood cells. It&amp;#x27;s painless and pretty much non-intrusive.&lt;p&gt;Check out &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dkms.de&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dkms.de&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bethematch.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;bethematch.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; for more information about the subject. Costs for the match test are unfortunately not covered by health insurance here in Germany, but it&amp;#x27;s only 30€ or something in that order.&lt;p&gt;If you ever wanted to save a life, get tested.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>callumprentice</author><text>I live in the US now but was born in the UK and lived there until I was almost 30.  Each time I tried to give blood here in CA, I was told I was ineligible because of the possibility I was a carrier for &amp;quot;Mad Cow Disease&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Anyone know if that&amp;#x27;s still the case or if there is a way to get tests and cleared for donations?</text></comment>