John Murry, who spent much of his professional life as president of two colleges in Kansas, is now fighting to save the lives of his four grandchildren.
Sean, Patrick, Danny and Timmy Murry have much in common. They are brothers, and they all have Diamond Blackfan Anemia, a bone marrow dysfunction in which the body does not produce red blood cells. The chance to live into their 30s is greatly increased if they receive a bone marrow transplant.
With the help of John Murry and the world’s largest bone marrow donor center, Delete Blood Cancer, Creighton University organized a bone marrow registration drive last April.
A total of 244 people took 10 minutes to get their cheeks swabbed to determine if they were a match for someone who needed a bone marrow transplant. Everyone from undergraduates, graduate students and students involved in Greek organizations to professional students and Jesuits were involved, according to Tom Myers, a clinical anatomy graduate student who played a part in organizing the event.
“This event will be a campus-wide interdisciplinary joint effort,” Myers wrote in an email preceding the event. “We don’t want it to be one person or organization who makes this effort, but rather Creighton University as a whole.”
Creighton University as a whole made an effort, resulting in eight bone marrow transplant matches.
Murry said that in his experience, he has never seen as many matches in a single drive produced in such a short time following the event.
“We typically see one match out of 80 registrations, and in Creighton’s drive there were eight matches out of the 240 registrations, or about one in 30,” he said. “So that was more than double what we find in most drives.”
Most colleges encourage their students to participate in community service, and Creighton University, always encouraging its students to be “men and women for and with others,” was a perfect fit.
“That is what bone marrow registration drives are all about: community service, helping others and saving lives,” Murry said.
Because of his past college administration experience, Murry along with his extended family and friends started organizing bone marrow registrations drives about three years ago in places like college campuses.
So far, they have organized 190 drives and have registered 25,740 potential donors.
“Although we haven’t found a match for my grandsons yet, we have found matches for 392 other blood cancer victims resulting in 45 life-saving transplants,” Murry said.
Bone marrow transplants are used to cure blood cancer if treatments like chemotherapy will no longer work to help cure the cancer.
Bone marrow transplants help individuals with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and sickle cell anemia, according to Murry.
“Blood cancer is the second leading cause of all cancer deaths and kills more children than any other disease,” he said.
If one is 18-55 years of age, weighs at least 110 pounds and has a body mass index of less than 40, he or she can do a cheek swab to determine if he or she is a potential donor.
Once potential donors are determined, the individual has the ability to choose whether or not he or she would like to donate.
There are two ways to donate. According to Murry, there is a preconceived notion that donating is a painful experience. However, both ways are fairly painless.
Eight out of 10 donations are peripheral blood stem cell donations. This method includes drawing blood, filtering the stem cells out and returning the remaining blood returns to the body through the opposite arm.
The other method of donation includes having a one-to two-hour procedure, but this method of donation is much less common. This procedure collects marrow cells from the back side of the pelvic bone. General anesthesia is given to the donor so he or she does
not experience pain. There is no cost for the donor if he or she chooses to give.
“It’s the easiest way I know of to become someone’s life-saving hero,” said Murry.
Myers hopes that a bone marrow registration drive will continue for many years at Creighton in an effort to save many more lives.