Photo courtesy of Bristen Brickles
These Hillsdale students waited in line for two and a half hours to be tested by the Red Cross to be a potential bone marrow match.
This past Saturday many Hillsdale students weren't just lazing around. They had made up their minds to do something with their day. They were going to help.
Junior Bristen Brickles had spent the past week in preparation for the event that day, e-mailing potential volunteers and setting up rides for the two hour drive.
By the time Saturday arrived, more than 40 Hillsdale students had come to participate in the bone marrow drive being held for Brickles' long-time family friend.
Pam Arnold, a mother, a wife, a daughter and a nurse, recently developed a rare form of leukemia and had been given notice by the doctors that this was probably her last Christmas.
Brickles, who described herself as a person who was not disposed to twiddling her thumbs, began working with the family to hold a large bone marrow drive in the community and get as many people as they could tested for a match.
“This was the first problem I have had that I couldn't talk my way out of,” Brickles said. “I had to do something, and I figured if I'm going to do it, do it right. If there's a possibility, I have got to try.”
Brickles then sent emails to all of the Greek houses and other students she could think of and invited them on the day trip to Clarkston, Mich., where the bone marrow drive was being sponsored by the Red Cross.
The 43 Hillsdale students left campus Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and drove for two hours only to wait in line for another three hours.
After the wait, however, the procedure was a simple finger prick and the information was put into a National Database for those waiting for a bone marrow match.
Junior Jocelyn Futrell was one of those students who woke up early last weekend to give her time. She said she did it out of empathy for the family.
“The first thing I thought when I read that email was that I have a mom and I would not want her to be sick,” Futrell said. “If there is even a little bit of a chance, it was worth the time.”
Overall, the bone marrow drive turned out to be very successful in achieving a large number of volunteers. More than 600 people showed up at the New Hope Bible Church to donate and it required 12 nursing volunteers just to get through all the people in line.
In fact, Rebecca Arnold, Pam's daughter, said that the Red Cross had to turn people away from the drive because the building was filled over capacity and there were no more parking spaces available.
“The Red Cross said it was the biggest drive they had ever seen in that area,” Rebecca said.
Because of the amount of donations that were made that day, it will take between six and eight weeks to process them for a match; however, Rebecca said they have found a potential match for her mother out of the National Database and are finalizing the tests and paperwork at the moment.
Potentially, that could mean Pam would be able to begin the transplant process in about three weeks.
“We had to do the drive at that moment, because if we would have waited to look throughout the whole Database and then put together a drive, it would have been too late,” Rebecca said.
She and Brickles both expressed, however, that the trip to Clarkston was not a waste and that the possibility of having a bone marrow match for anyone in the country made the trip worthwhile.
“I just really appreciate going to a school like Hillsdale, where the people will sacrifice a Saturday to help someone they don't even know,” Brickles said. “I have friends that go to the University of Michigan and Grand Valley and no one came with them to the drive. It just really makes you appreciate the people here.”