When he wandered into a bone marrow registration drive last year, Mississippi State student Ronald Wilburn had no idea what lay ahead.
Within months, he was found to be a potential match for a 10-year-old with life-threatening aplastic anemia. Within a year--just weeks ago--he underwent the first surgical procedure of his life to give the anonymous youngster a chance to live.
"I never thought I'd be called," admits Wilburn, a junior computer science major from Crawford. "Needles and I just don't get along."
Aplastic anemia results when the bone marrow fails to produce enough essential blood elements. Like Wilburn, the younster facing the illness is African American, an ethnic group underrepresented in the national marrow registry.
Some 94 African-Americans have received unrelated bone marrow transplants since the registry program began in 1987, according to National Marrow Donor Program statistics. "There is a real need to recruit minorities as potential donors," said Monica Ingram, a coordinator with the Mid-South Regional Marrow Donor Program in Memphis, Tenn.
The regional collection center recruits volunteers from a number of Mississippi universities, including Mississippi State. Names are added to an NMDP registry, maintained to provide marrow transplants from volunteer unrelated donors to patients with leukemia, aplastic anemia, lymphomas, and other life-threatening diseases.
Nearly 1.7 million volunteers are registered. Nearly 3,500 transplants have resulted.
While a residence assistant at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science on the Mississippi University for Women campus, Wilburn decided to register when Delta Sigma Theta sorority held a donor drive in the fall of 1994. Blood tests identified him as a potential match.
While identities of recipients are kept confidential, Wilburn was told that the patient was a 10-year-old whose condition was worsening.
"I made up my mind that I'd to it," he said. More blood tests and physicals followed, some conducted at the Longest Student Health Center.
Wilburn was cleared for outpatient surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science, a marrow collection site. The hour-long procedure, during which marrow is extracted from the back of the pelvic bone, was performed shortly after fall classes began in late August. While the procedure requires less than a day in the hospital, the recovery has been more difficult than Wilburn anticipated. Pain, stiffness and soreness are normal byproducts of the procedure.
"I missed about two weeks of classes," he said.
Aware of his special situation, administrators in the university's College of Engineering have worked to accommodate the absence.
"Because of the time Ronald missed, we've helped him arrange to audit classes, rather than enroll for academic credit," said Assistant Dean William N. Smyer. "We're happy to work with him to solve scheduling difficulties, especially since he's made such a major personal commitment."
For Wilburn, the pain, the travel, and the changes in his coursework are minor inconveniences.
"I'd do it again, even knowing what's involved," he said. "It's giving just a little of yourself to help save someone. You can't put a price on a life."
This World Wide Web version of MSU Memo was modified and updated by Chris Brown.
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Last modified: Friday, 14-Jun-2002 15:58:59 CDT.
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