I'm gonna cry and type some words and get something off my chest before I go to bed real quick.

I signed up for the bone marrow registry about 4 years ago. A couple months went by and I thought nothing of it, until I got a phone call from a woman telling me that they had recently processed my sample, and I was immediately matched with a patient who had been on the list waiting. She sent me some info, a questionnaire to fill out, and we scheduled a doctor's visit to make sure I was a proper match and that we could proceed with a donation.

Reading more into the process scared me. I never dreamed I'd be matched, especially not right away, but I knew I'd be upset with myself if I didn't sign up when the opportunity presented itself. When I got matched, I knew I'd be upset with myself if I couldn't go through the donation. All in all, my side of the process is nothing compared to the struggle of the other patient, and the amount you give is infinitesimal to the amount they receive. But fuck, I hate needles. So much. I still yell out when I get my blood drawn, even though my nurse knows to keep me distracted as best she can.

Anyway, I got my blood tested, and was a very good match for the patient. Words can't describe how I felt, getting off the phone after hearing that news. It sank in, that something I was producing in my body was what was needed to save someone's life. That part of me was going to be the reason someone else could live. I had never done anything meaningful in my life. I had never helped anyone in any significant way. I was proud to have a purpose.

We were in the process of scheduling the donation when I got another call. This one impacted me even more, though not right away. I was told that the patient's health wasn't good enough to receive the donation, and that we were going to wait a few weeks until they were healthier. "No problem, I'm ready when he is."

I don't know much about this patient. I know that he was a 46 year old man, and had been waiting for a match for over a year. And while I didn't understand it then, I now know that when I was told he wasn't healthy enough to receive a donation at the time, it meant that he wasn't going to be.

I know I'm too hard on myself, but I feel like I let the guy down. I feel like, while I didn't kill him, I played a role in him not surviving. If I had registered earlier, if I had been on the list since I was 18, that guy could still be alive and with his family. But I waited until the opportunity to register presented itself nice and easy, a swab at a booth. Something so small and easy on my part could have made the life and death difference for someone. But I was fucking lazy, and he's dead.

A decent amount of time went by, almost two years. I got another phone call. "Mr. GoAgain, this is very unusual, but you've been matched again."

This time it was a 14 year old girl. It was elating, almost, to be able to get the chance to make the difference in someone's life again.

I received my questionnaire again and began filling it out. And my heart sank. There's a question about recent hospitalizations on there. A couple months prior, I had bought a new, nice set of knives when I moved into my apartment. Henkels. My parents had a set from when they got married, and I wanted to get into cooking, so forked over the cash for something nice that I knew would last. My first time using one of the knives was to slice some bacon to be more manageable in the pan. My second time using that particular knife was to cut an apple. With my parents' old set, I'd hold the knife in my fingers and push the apple against the blade with my thumb to slice through it. As long as I stopped pushing when I got to my thumb, I wouldn't cut myself. With brand new Henkels, the knife went through the apple like it wasn't even there, and took a chunk of my thumb with it.

Due to the nature of my injury, the fact that the knife had been used to cut raw meat, and my visit to the hospital, I was not able to donate. I was told that I'd be taken off of the registry for two years. I was never told if that girl had other matches (often, they'll find several matches and have them all blood tested to figure out the best match. I'm assuming that since it was so long after I had registered, she had just been added to the list, and may have had other matches besides me.). I don't know what her fate was.

All I know is that for a second time, I let someone down in a life or death matter. I can understand the argument that the first guy wasn't my fault. I signed up, which is more than most people do. I could never have known that months would have made the difference in someone's life. I still blame myself, but I understand the argument. This time, I fucked up. I did something so fucking stupid, and days later found out that the repercussions weren't just getting stitches, weren't just mine. Fuck. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that one.

If you stuck through it this long, please, don't wait for the opportunity to be easier. Just sign up. http://www.deletebloodcancer.org/en/register . It's easy enough now. Get on the list. Maybe you'll save a life soon. Maybe you'll forget and save one in a decade. Maybe you'll never be called. But at least you'll be there if it turns out you're needed.

tl;dr - sign up here http://www.deletebloodcancer.org/en/register, sign up now. It might be the difference in someone's life.