Lots of action on twitter regarding Alice Pyne, a 15 year old terminally ill cancer patient from the UK, and her apparent “bucket list” of things she wants to do before the inevitable sadly happens.
But if you bother to have a look, “I want to trend on twitter” isn’t there, despite what you may have read (repeatedly) on twitter.
What is there is:
To make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor
Which is suddenly not so appealing to help with, is it?
But rather than RT’ing nonsense, why not use this as an opportunity to actually do something positive? After all, you wanted to help Alice out when you thought she just wanted a few pixels on a social media site, didn’t you?
Registering as a bone marrow donor does take a bit more effort, but it’s actually not so hard.
You can find all the information you need on the Sunflower Fund website, but the basics are these:
To become a bone marrow donor you need to be:
- Committed to help anyone (not just the person who motivates you to join)
- Between 18 – 50 years of age
- In general good health (with no history of hepatitis or sexually transmitted diseases)
- Weigh over 50 kg
Do not register as a bone marrow stem cell donor if:
- You think you might need a test for HIV, Hepatitis –B or C.
- You have injected yourself (even once) with illegal or non-prescription drugs.
- You have taken money or drugs for sex.
All you have to do to start this process is call 0800 12 10 82 weekdays 9am-1pm or 2-4pm or email donorqueries@sunflowerfund.org.za
You will need to give 10ml of blood for tissue typing.
And should you be a match and have the opportunity to save a life, contrary to what you may have heard, the actual donation process is minor, with very little discomfort.
I have no idea if Alice Pyne really does exist*, but why not use this as an opportunity to make a difference anyway?
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* UPDATE: BBC and David Cameron think she exists. Good enough for me.