North Texans showed up in droves last week in response to a Dallas teen’s search for a bone marrow donor.
Over 1,200 people turned up at Sunday’s bone marrow donor registration drive held at Park Cities Baptist Church. The church organized the event for Pike Petersen, a 13-year-old member of the congregation who was diagnosed with leukemia last month.
The news was even more difficult to swallow since Pike’s mother, Mica Petersen, had been battling lymphoma over the past year.
“I would never have thought that cancer would hit our family again… that was the shock of a lifetime,” Mica told CBS News Texas.
While Pike was in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy to fight this aggressive form of blood cancer, members of his family were in attendance on Sunday.
“It’s been so affirming, and we’re just so proud and feel the warmth from everybody participating,” said Pike’s father, Paul Petersen, according to Fox 4 News KDFW.
The event involved completing paperwork and undergoing cheek swabs to determine potential compatibility for a bone marrow donation. Donors must be in good health and be between 18-55 years of age.
“For diseases like leukemia and lymphoma, they need an exact genetic twin,” said Amy Roseman, managing director of Earl Young’s Team, an organization dedicated to fighting blood cancer, told Fox 4.
Due to this, only 4 out of 10 of those diagnosed with blood cancer find a match.
Hopes are high that Pike — recently found to be in remission — will find a match. He will need three more rounds of chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant, which is a procedure that replaces diseased bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells.
The harvesting process is done under anesthesia. Bone marrow is pulled from a donor’s hip using a large needle.
According to Earl Young’s Team, a person in the U.S. is diagnosed with blood cancer every three minutes.
“People from all over this area, from miles outside of Dallas, I know are coming today to donate,” Taylor Lowrey, a student pastor at Park Cities Baptist Church, told CBS News Texas on Sunday.
The results of the donor drive will be known in four to six weeks. Those who attended the event will learn if they could potentially provide Pike and other patients worldwide with a chance at a new life.
“You know, our message is, if they’re not a match for Pike, they’re going to be a match or someone else across the globe,” said Paul, according to Fox 4.
Anyone interested in registering as a donor can order a free at-home testing kit here.
Those wishing to make a monetary donation to help fund the effort to test for donors can do so here. It costs the organization $45 to process each kit.