Canada's Stem Cell Donor Registry.

Post-assessment, I've started raising awareness about the need for Canadians aged 17 to 35 years of age to sign up for the Stem Cell Donor Registry located on the Canadian Blood Services website. Selfishly, my goal is to have a perfect donor match available when it's time for me to be the recipient. Of course, others will benefit from increasing the number of donors on the registry, but I'd be lying if I were to say that my motivation was anything but self interested.

The first step in raising awareness has been to appear on CBC Radio's supper hour radio show Mainstreet to talk with host Matt Rainnie and Brandon Peacock, Community Development Manager (Ottawa) / Donor Relations & Collections ONN about the registry. You can listen to the interview here.

If you or someone you know is interested in signing up for the Stem Cell Donor Registry, you can do so here. It's my understanding that all that's required to register is a simple swab of your mouth.

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Your privileges have been revoked.

Freely adapted from the original "Andy Capp" strip by Reg Smythe. Last November, the province's only oncologist/hematologist left PEI. I was fortunate enough, however, to be referred to an oncologist/hematologist in New Brunswick, whom I began seeing in December. Shortly into the new year, I received, while at work, a phone call out of the blue from the Clinical Nurse Leader at the PEI Cancer Treatment Centre. I had never spoken to this person previously, but she had some news for me: Because PEI has not been able to find a replacement oncologist/hematologist, and they had no recourse but to send me to a specialist in Moncton, I and my specialist “do not have privileges" at the PEI Cancer Treatment Centre”. I will also no longer have access to the Nurse Practitioner at the Cancer Centre whom I was set up with for continued maintenance. To be clear, I will now have bloodwork and any transfusions that I require at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlotte...

My province is losing its only oncologist/hematologist.

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A deal with the devil.

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JAK2 Mutant

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