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I Joined The Registry...

If you have joined the Bone Marrow Registry add yourself to the "I Joined" list and let others know you have made a difference.

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"I Joined" guestbook

Here are the last few people that signed the guestbook:

I Joined!

Richard Richmond
London, ON
Joined 2011 (1 year)
"Registered in US Gift of Life Registry. The Canadian one will not accept individuals with asthma requiring occassional use of puffers."

John
Hamilton, ONTARIO
Joined 1990 (22 years)
"After more than 10 yrs on the list, I just got called as a match. Can't wait to be the chance that someone needed:)"

Lisa Arlotti
Tecumseh , ONTARIO
Joined 2011 (1 year)

Jill McAllister
Three Hills, ALBERTA
Joined 2000 (12 years)
"I joined afew years ago... I would be so proud to help a family in need!"

seth quiring
merlin, ON
Joined 2011 (1 year)
"loved it"

Click HERE to view
a complete list.

* People listed with a butterfly icon show that they were inspired to join the Bone Marrow Registry after visiting this website.

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In The News

The Toronto Star
November 7, 2010

Coyle: Bone-marrow transplant month is young Katelyn’s legacy

Bruce Crozier is not an MPP given to rhetoric, hyperbole or self-aggrandizement. He’s a certified general accountant, for crying out loud. He favours bow-ties in an unretro, un-ironic sort of way. He’s solid, dependable, methodical, in the manner of his profession and of good constituency politicians.

So when a guy like Crozier calls a day the best he’s had in his 17 years at Queen’s Park, it makes you pay attention.

Last Thursday, the Liberal from the southwestern Ontario riding of Essex, won passage of the Katelyn Bedard Bone Marrow Awareness Month Act, 2010.

Katie, he told the House during second-reading debate, loved to sing, do crafts and play with her brother and cousins. Not long after her second birthday, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

After chemotherapy, the leukemia went into remission. But it returned. The only possible cure was a bone-marrow transplant.

But no one in the bone-marrow registry was a match for Katie, Crozier said. In June 2005, not yet four years old, the little girl from Windsor, Ont., died.

Katie’s family wanted to make sure the same thing did not happen to other families and hoped to improve the ability to find unrelated stem-cell matches.

Crozier took up the cause. Three times he introduced a private member’s bill hoping to make November bone-marrow awareness month.

"There is a match out there somewhere for every individual who needs a bone-marrow transplant," he said. "It's finding that match."

The first time his bill was introduced, it wasn’t called for third reading. The second time, it died with prorogation.

Crozier was determined that he was going to be, as he said, "third time lucky."

He and Liberal colleague Kevin Flynn — with the assistance of Canadian Blood Services and its OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network — sponsored a cheek-swabbing event last week and encouraged MPPs, Queen’s Park staffers and the public to get tested and register as potential donors.

Testing, MPPs discovered, took less than 10 minutes and was easy and painless.

Flynn got involved in memory of 20-year-old constituent David Smyth, a Trent University student who died this summer awaiting a bone-marrow transplant.

"We had planned a donor clinic at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on a Tuesday," he said. "Unfortunately, David passed away the Friday before."

Liberal House Leader Monique Smith had gone earlier in the day with New Democrat France Gelinas to have swabs taken. She thought she was already registered, but wanted to make sure.

Thirteen years ago, Smith's brother was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. He received a bone-marrow transplant from an older brother, even though it wasn’t a perfect match. Complications arose and Smith’s younger brother died about 10 years ago.

"So I come to this with a personal experience," she said, and was committed to "ensuring perfect matches are found for as many people as possible."

Flynn said that in Canada about 800 people are awaiting bone-marrow transplants. But only about 250,000 Canadians are registered. The goal is two million.

Making November bone marrow awareness month would, he said, send a message to all Ontarians that “they can do something very, very simple” that might save a life.

Bruce Crozier found that he was, indeed, third time lucky.

Not only did his bill named for Katelyn Bedard pass second reading. It was, in a rare step, called immediately for third reading and passed into law.

"I don't think I've had a day when I felt any better about something we've done," he said with cracking voice.

And for Bruce Crozier, that’s pretty much dancing a jig of joy on the rooftop.

Story by Jim Coyle