Fearlessly Showing Great Love
At a marrow donor registration drive in Kaohsiung on November 19, 1995, volunteers praise a young girl for her great love. Many people are terrified of hypodermic needles, but when they want to save other people's lives, they are willing to let the nurses stick the needles into their arms.
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| On January 5, 1996, Lin Pi-yu, director of the Tzu Chi Taiwan Bone Marrow Registry, hands over 1,300 cc of marrow to Lung Shih-chiung, director of the Singapore Bone Marrow Foundation, who came to Taiwan to pick up the marrow. It was the third international transplant between Taiwan and Singapore. |
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| On August 3, 1996, at an international conference in Hualien on bone marrow donation, Tzu Chi Taiwan Marrow Donor Registry director Lin Pi-yu signs cooperation agreements with bone marrow data banks of the United States, Singapore and Australia. |
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| Dr. Satoi Takahashi of Japan examines bags of precious bone marrow. On September 20, 1996, the first international bone marrow transplant between Taiwan and Japan was performed. |
Some people have very tiny blood vessels, so they many be poked with the needles five or six times. Even tall, strong men may feel dizzy at the sight of blood. However, they still do not want to give up this opportunity to save others.
Celebration of New Life
"She was like the sun in my life and gave me hope." At a meeting between marrow donors and recipients, the 11th bone marrow recipient, Chen Yu-hsiang(center), and his mother thank donor Chen Yi-min(right) for the gift of live.
Ms. Chen stated that she had just gotten married when the request came for her bone marrow, which she donated with her husband's encouragement. Three months later, she became pregnant. Now that she has a child, she can even more deeply appreciate the value of life.
According to international regulations, a recipient and a donor may only meet each other one year after the transplant. After the long period of expectation and waiting, the encounter between the two usually ends with embracing and weeping.
The patient's hardships are transformed into exultation and gratitude.
International Donations
After bone marrow is extracted and sanitized, it must be kept at low temperature, taken in an ambulance to the airport, flown overseas, and then injected into the recipient. The whole process has to be done within 24 hours. Thus, timing is critically important and the process is extremely difficult.
The Tzu Chi Marrow Donor Registry now has cooperative agreements with counterparts in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States and Australia. This has increased the international resources for leukemia patients. Now, blood disease patients need only apply to any one of the data banks, and the search for a match can be done internationally by computer. This simplifies the procedure, saves a lot of time in traveling, and greatly increases the probability of finding a compatible donor.
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