{"id":14100,"date":"2012-06-04T19:34:14","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T02:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=14100"},"modified":"2012-07-03T11:12:06","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T18:12:06","slug":"av-motoplex-hosts-marrow-drive-for-kim-mcgrath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2012\/06\/04\/av-motoplex-hosts-marrow-drive-for-kim-mcgrath\/","title":{"rendered":"AV Motoplex hosts marrow drive for Kim McGrath"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Brandi Lundin explains how to be added to the Be the Match registry at AV Motoplex Saturday morning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LANCASTER – Jeremy McGrath, motocross and supercross champion, is reaching out to friends, fans and riders across country asking them to donate bone marrow and give support to his wife Kim, who was diagnosed with leukemia recently.<\/p>\n

AV Motoplex in Lancaster answered the call with a bone marrow drive Saturday to find potential matches for Kim.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir lives seemed to be going perfect, they had everything \u2013 money, kids, stardom, now his wife has this…it just kind of shows that people can have everything and something bad can happen,\u201d said Peter Ware, motocross rider. \u201cThey’re going to see a whole new way of life really after they see how many people are doing this all over in the motocross community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ware said the idea of donating got everyone’s attention because of Jeremy and Kim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard bone marrow is kind of painful to give but I’m going to do it anyway. If we can do this and break bones, we can do that,\u201d Ware said. \u201cI never heard of a drive like this before. It’s being brought to the forefront of our community, at least in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonia Milosevich, one of the organizers of the event, said she got involved in the drive because of her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a son and couldn’t imagine going through what she’s going through,\u201d Milosevich said. \u201cIf the person that is a match for someone else, what if they didn’t come out and register? I couldn’t imagine someone telling me I couldn’t be around (my son) anymore. It kind of just tugs at the heart strings a little bit. I’m a sucker for the heart strings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean Werner said he decided to donate because of his daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter races. It’s a small family community and she rides with a lot of these people down in Temecula, so she knows a lot of the pro riders,\u201d Werner said. \u201cShe was hurt real bad last November so they rallied around her, so I’m just kind of paying it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jeremy and Kim McGrath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A note from Kim was posted on the Facebook page \u201cTeam KIM,\u201d thanking everyone for their support during this time. The note reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to begin by saying \u2018Thank You!\u2019 for all the cards and well wishes, heartwarming e-mails and phone calls. Your genuine love and concern continue to lift and carry us through this difficult time. Sincerest thanks to all who have participated in the recent bone marrow drives whether by swabbing to be a donor, volunteering or just being there to support Be The Match. Your response has been overwhelming and unbelievably humbling. Without all of you my story could not be told\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

AV Motoplex owner Brandi Lundin, another organizer of Saturday’s drive, said in addition to finding a match for Kim, they’re also trying to find a match for the thousands of people who also need this donation.<\/p>\n

Paige Morrison, account executive of Be The Match, said a lot of the matching has to do with background and heritage. The National Marrow Donation Program does drives all over the country to find matches for anyone searching.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are being added to the registry constantly,\u201d she said. \u201cBut because of Kim and her search, it has inspired a lot of people to get involved all over. So we’re doing drives for Kim McGrath all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will take about four weeks before any of the 130 registered people Saturday are in the system and searchable, Morrison said. Once they’re in that system, they can be searched through for any patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could contact you in a month or ten years or never,\u201d Lundin said. \u201cIt’s just a matter of if you’re somebody’s match or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The process to be added to the registry involves basic information and a mouth swab, Lundin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was easy. It was simple. Everyone should do it,\u201d Werner said.<\/p>\n

Lundin said this type of donation is nothing like donating a kidney.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ray Engelhardt swabs his mouth Saturday morning in order to be a potential bone marrow donor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt’s the blood inside the bone that you’re donating and it reproduces itself over four to six weeks so it’s not like you’re giving away something that you don’t give back,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I keep thinking to myself if it were me or one of my children that were in need of a match, I would hope that the person in this nation that matched their bone marrow would register.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are about 6,000 people searching on any given day, Morrison said, and about 10,000 a year are searching for an unrelated transplant.<\/p>\n

Donating is a lot easier than people think, said Morrison. If matched, there are two potential ways that person can donate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeventy-five percent of the time, it’s what we call the peripheral blood stem cell transplant,\u201d she said, \u201cwhere it’s just two IVs in the arm, and it’s similar to donating platelets or plasma where your blood is filtered through a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

They’re taking stem cells out of the blood that they need and they’re giving the donors blood back at the end of it, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally at the end of the day, you’ve lost nothing at all because in the days leading up to that donation, you’re going to be given an injection that boosts your body’s production of those cells,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n

The other 25 percent is a marrow donation where they use a syringe at the back of the pelvic bone and take out soft marrow, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not as scary as people imagine,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cWe don’t go through the spine, there’s no drilling in the bone, it’s a soft spongy bone, so it’s still just a syringe to take out the soft marrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s great too is if you’re not able to make it to one of these drives, you can go on to the website marrow.org and they send you a kit free to your home,\u201d Lundin added. \u201cYou can do it from your home and send it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANCASTER – Jeremy McGrath, motocross and supercross champion, is reaching out to friends, fans and riders across country asking them to donate bone marrow and give support to his wife Kim, who was diagnosed with leukemia recently. AV Motoplex in Lancaster answered the call with a bone marrow drive Saturday to find potential matches for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}