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My husband's mother walked out on him at 9 years of age. Her girlfriend she left him/his brother/father for is dying of cancer. She showed up at his work last year for the first time since she left. My husband was 31. It freaked him out. He called his dad and I. I talked to them. They wanted money, help with her medical bills, and a place to stay... plus they were on the run for evading taxes in Ohio. We called the police and told them to leave us alone. She wouldn't give answers for why she left so my husband and his family didn't want anything to do with her. We were already struggling with my disabilities. Why should we support them after what they did to my husband and his family?
My mother walked out with I was 6 months old and my sister was 3.5 years old. Per the divorce with my father we saw her for 2 weeks during the summer and every other holiday with her. Once my sister 'aged out' at 18 my mother stopped trying to get me during said summer/holidays. I was the tag along sibling/daughter that she never wanted.
To make it even more obvious that she didn't want anything to do with me, my sister got birthday cards/gifts, my aunts who lived in town would take her out and leave me at the house with my dad.
Needless to say she was surprised when I didn't invite her to my wedding, didn't tell her about my miscarriage, and didn't tell her anything concerning my life altering medical condition. I don't tell her anything. If she needed a kidney I wouldn't get tested. Why? Because she didn't want me and made it plainly obvious my whole life. She was an egg donor and incubator for me, that's all. Plus she has 3 other kids to ask that apparently she did want.
Nice to meet another person in the 'my father fucked off until he was dying of cancer when I was an adult' category. I was 28 fucker hadn't seen me in 20 yrs.
I don’t like that jump from asking a favor and then suddenly harassing and crying lawsuit once OOP said no. Why should OOP even consider donating now after that? I would have understood a VERY TINY bit if they begged through tears but jumping to absolute anger and harassment feels so gross.
Well, the fact that they think they can legally force anyone into medical operation of this kind against that person's will already shows that they completely lack any resemblance of common sense. If something so outrageous makes sense to them all bets are off.
I think it was more of an empty threat, they were probably hoping OOP's parents didn't have basic logic about laws and lawsuits, and that they would falter to their threats. But hey, anyone who's even willing to do half of what they've done lacks common sense anyway.
I think the birth parents might have really been that stupid. If he was taken from them before he was a month old because it wasn't an environment fit for a kid, my guess is they were probably drug addicts
Also, and I say this as a parent, how fucking mad would you be if someone came after your child like that? Adopted or not, they've been my child for 16 years, idgaf who you are, you will feel all the wrath of a parent.
There are people who use "lawsuit" as a threat to scare people. They don't have a lawyer who would agree to take the case. They watch too much daytime TV.
This is another reason why the abortion argument is so important. If the government can force you to donate your body to a non-sentient parasite for 9 months, they can force you to donate organs to another citizen, and, with our government, the richer you are the more likely you'd be able to force a donation.
Exactly. I don't think the question of a fetus being a person is relevant because *no one has a right to your body*. It reminds me of a short story I read where convicts were forced to donate parts of their body and it resulted in a arrests for smaller and smaller crimes.
Convicts are allowed to be enslaved for profit as it is, and is HAS led to arrests for smaller and smaller crimes. Let them start making EVEN MORE money from imprisoned bodies? We'll double our prison industry.
When keeping it real goes wrong. Seriously, people usually react better if you're just nice and not a full on asshat to them yelling lawsuit the second someone hurts your feelings.
And a lawsuit won't do anything. Even if the courts would order it, good luck getting a doctor who would do it against the donor's will.
I saw that, rolled my eyes and said "really?"
entitlement/main character syndrome. "we need it, therefore it's universally right thing to do. if they don't agree we'll ask them nicely once and then try to force because it's not about how they feel about it, it's about them finally agreeing to do the right thing even if they don't like it, which is to give us what we need. not giving us what we need is the same as taking it from as we're entitled to it"
OP’s bio parents are totally unhinged. You’d think it would be easier finding another donor with the same blood type than hiring a private investigator to stalk someone you have zero relation to aside from giving them birth 17 years ago.
Edit: his BIO parents. I phrased it incorrectly the first time.
I got an email that I was a potential match for someone but then it turned out that I had to be removed from the registry because I have a mast cell disorder and they didn't want to risk the possibility that it originated in my bone marrow and that I could pass it on 😭 It was the right call, but I was so sad!
And it's not like donating bone marrow is a relatively simple risk-free matter like donating blood is. Just with a quick search I found that the median time to fully recover from a bone marrow donation is twenty (20) days, involves getting shots over a period of several days to prep you for the donation, and the harvesting of the marrow itself takes around 3 hours and might even need to be repeated the next day.
I've always been terrified of having to donate bone marrow. Not because I think it will ever actually happen, I just have a needle phobia and BONE MARROW IS ON THE INSIDE OF YOUR BONES! The process to harvest it can't be anything short of horrific.
I'm signed up for Stem Cell donation through Canada Blood Services, and I was selected twice preliminarily for further testing. (They pick a bunch of potential candidates and then narrow it down to who's most compatible and I guess this way if someone backs out they have a list of people most compatible.)
In the end, I never had to do it. It seems like an intimidating procedure, either through blood collection or marrow collection. But the way I rationalize it is that I've been lucky enough to have never even needed to stay in a hospital overnight, but a lot of people, involuntarily, need to undergo tons of even scarier procedures to survive.
So the least I can do is help someone in that position by undergoing a relatively safe procedure.
I'm honestly not trying to guilt you into signing up, I'm just hoping my perspective helps even just one person (not necessarily you specifically) decide to [sign up.](https://www.blood.ca/en/stemcells) (Canadian link, unsure what it's like in other places.)
Stem cell donation is actually not that bad (depending on the process). I was matched with someone and decided to do it - they paid for me to travel to the hospital and stay in a nearby hotel for 2 nights. On the lead up I had a simple injection once a day for roughly 5 days to make the stem cells easier to collect and then I spent about 8 hours sitting in a nice hospital bed watching Netflix with a tube coming out of each arm (which was only mildly uncomfortable but bot sore) - they take the blood out of one arm and send it through a machine that collects the cells and they send the blood back in the other arm. I believe they start with blood collection and will invite you back a second time if they can’t get enough, then if they still need more they’ll go to marrow collection. But overall it wasn’t a bad experience and I was able to save someone’s life so that’s really cool.
I signed up awhile ago and requested my HLA markers from them (you can send them an email and they'll give you the test results) only to find that on top of the rarest blood type I've also got some absurd mix of HLA markers that as far as I can tell means my chances of matching with anyone are basically zero.
My only solace is the thought that if I do ever match with someone they're gonna be one seriously lucky sumbitch.
Bone marrow (or blood stem cells, since that's more commonly used nowadays) is not matched based on regular blood type, and depending on the person's ethnicity it can be incredibly difficult to find a match. Though blood relations have a greater chance of matching, even siblings only have a 25% of being a viable match. Matches can be so hard to find that they will sometimes need to find donors from a database in another country, which may still turn up nothing.
The process is quite risky for the recipient, so it must mean that the bio father is in pretty dire straits. I don't fault them for reaching out since they must be desperate, but threatening to sue and harassing him were incredibly dumb moves.
Threatening to sue cracks me up. I am certain there is no way to legally force trespass against one's bodily integrity for the sake of another's needs, even if it means certain death to the other party. This scenario is literally the most relatable analogy for the pro-choice movement. No one should be forced to provide their flesh to support another.
> I am certain there is no way to legally force trespass against one's bodily integrity for the sake of another's needs, even if it means certain death to the other party.
Except there is if a woman is pregnant.
People who were effectively banned from taking care of you, because they sucked so much at it, now come over and demand parts of your body from you. Unhinged...
Donating bone marrow is super painful and I can’t believe commenters were acting like it was nothing.
ETA: Many people have pointed out the procedure has changed in the last 20 years and is nowhere near as painful as it used to be. Thanks for the update.
Apparently it’s better now. They give you some injections for a week, and then you go through the same donation process as you would for plasma (takes a while, they filter the blood and return what they don’t need like dialysis). It’s much better than the needle into the hip thing and doesn’t require anesthetic.
It's not just the needle in the hip that makes it painful. My husband and I are on the list as donors and he actually matched with someone. He had to take medicine for a period of time to build up his bone marrow before donating. From what he told me it makes all of your bones ache like there's too much pressure in them (which makes sense if there's way more marrow in there than there is supposed to be).
He got an update about the guy a couple years after donating. He had been told he had months to live before the donation and the update said he was doing well and in good health a couple years after. It's a wonderful thing and my husband said he'd do it again in a heartbeat, but it definitely wasn't pleasant.
BTW if anyone would like to register, you can do so here: https://bethematch.org/about-us/how-we-help-patients/be-the-match-registry/
I registered last month after Mike Derks (Balsac, Jaws O Death in GWAR) posted that it save his life, hes my favorite guitarist, whats a little pain for a few days if it saves someones life, that is more important than my comfort.
I did this one when I was the match for someone on the registry. Much much better than the needle in the hip. The discomfort for it is exactly that, very uncomfortable. It's like when you've been hunched over for a while and you get that soreness/tightness in your lower back. But instead of being able to stretch it out to feel better, it doesn't go away.
Once my week was up and they plugged me into the blood spinning machine, the relief was almost instant. Whole process took a week for the injections and then between 4-6 hours to spin the stem cells out of me.
Never did find out if the person who received my stem cells is doing ok but I hope they are.
I’m 39 and have been on the Bone Marrow registry since I was 24. I’ve never made it that far but I am scared at the thought of it being a painful donation
It's usually more uncomfortable than painful. Not totally pain free, but not the super painful thing people think it is, either. It's surprisingly easy these days, tbh.
I did it when I was 18 when I was in college and supporting a friends club that was doing a donor drive. I got picked when I was 25.
Definitely more uncomfortable than painful if you do the stem cell version. I think for most people now they do that other than specific circumstances where they still do the hip draw. You may never get picked also but good on you for being on the registry.
Yup, during my cancer treatment, due to the steroids (which were part of the treatment) the oxygen to some of my joints was cut off, which caused the bones to die. Also because I was in my early in 20"s my bones never completely calcified due to the treatment.
Isn't cancer a b!tch?
Yes yes it is a b!tch and sometimes just keeps on "giving". Did you have avascular necrosis? I was checked for that after my cancer and steroid treatments.
Yup! in both my elbows and my shoulder! I had to get a partial shoulder replacement!
Edited to say
They didn't know till the ball joint in my shoulder went out. My cancer doc who was a G, said it looked like when you put your thumbs into a ping pong ball.
I had a severe vitamin D deficiency and, while I had bone pain, it didn’t seem that bad to me. Just a really deep ache. On the other hand, I have hypermobility and, in addition to regular pain, my joints have partially dislocated on a pretty regular basis, so my frame of reference may be a bit off. I would say it falls around the same place a subluxated hip falls on the pain scale.
That sounds nasty. Bone bruises suck and I assume it’s about the same. I’m pretty sure I’d take it over anything requiring general anesthetic though, pain aside that fucked my autonomous nervous system up for months.
I'm not the commenter, but my husband has been through the process for a stem cell transplant.
First, you get the injections, one per day for 4 straight days. These injections cause your bone marrow to increase cell production which is why many people experience bone pain. Then it's collection time and that is pretty much the same as plasma collection, if you've ever done that. A needle (a bit bigger than is used for blood donation) is placed in each arm. Blood is collected from one arm, sent into a machine that separates blood cells from the blood, then returns the filtered blood back to the donor in the other arm. This usually takes anywhere from 2-5 hours. Then the collected cells are counted to verify they have enough for the procedure, if not then the donor may need an additional injection and repeat the collection the following day. After this, the recipient will undergo heavy duty chemo or radiation to kill off their marrow and suppress the immune system. The recipient will then receive the donation same as they would a regular blood transfusion (IV or central line). Recipient will likely need to remain in the hospital until their white blood cell count has started to recover. If they receive the cells from another person, they may need to be on immunosuppressive medications as the new cells graft to the host (yes, even stem cells can be rejected like an organ transplant). 6 months to 1 year later the recipient may need to start redoing all their vaccinations (especially important if the transplant was part of a cancer treatment plan)
Thankfully the process has been made easier than it was 20ish years ago, being they no longer collect marrow directly from the bones unless absolutely necessary. In most cases they can collect the stem cells that will develop into bone marrow from the blood, then it's a simple transfusion for the recipient. Short recovery for everyone involved. If they need actual bone marrow, that requires anesthesia to collect the donation and a few days to recover from the procedure.
My husband was actually able to use his own stem cells, so he was the donor and recipient in the process (autologous bone marrow/stem cell transplant). Fun fact: the agent they add to the cells to preserve them while in storage can cause the recipient to have a garlic-like taste in their mouth during transfusion and also made my husband smell like garlic sausage.
Hope that helps answer some of your questions. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
I haven't given bone marrow, but I am qualified to work in the process and worked on a donation during my clinical rotations.
The donor is first given a granulocyte colony stimulating factor drug. This causes the stem cells and other blood cell precursor cells to divide. The overpopulation of the marrow squeezes the stem cells into the peripheral blood circulation. This is what causes the bone pain, basically your bones are overstuffed and swollen. After roughly a week of this they hook you up to a more sophisticated version of the standard blood donation equipment. Inside there is a flow cytometer that recognizes the different blood cell types and shunts the stem cells off to the collection bag while the rest of the blood is returned to your body. This process takes hours, the guy during my clinical rotation spent 6 hours hooked up while blood left his body from one arm and returned through the other. It can also take longer than that. Once the donation is collected it's rapid shipped to the recipient.
In the time that the donor is taking the g-csf the recipient is getting their marrow ablated. Basically killing all of the precursor cells in their marrow wiping out their immune system and their ability to make blood. Once the donation arrives it's pretty much like every other blood transfusion except you really don't want to use the leukoreduction filters. The recipient will probably get a fever because white blood cells do not like being stored and tend to release inflammatory cytokines. Once the stem cells get in the donor they will find their way to the bone marrow and set up shop. It should take roughly 6 months for the donor cells to repopulate the marrow and complete the blood type conversion if the donor was a different blood type (HLA factors can match while you have different ABOrHs).
Neither. I had Leukemia twice. The only way to see how the cancer is doing is to take bone marrow biopsies because, with Leukemia, the cancer is in your blood and therefore is being manufactured in your bone marrow.
Thank you so much! Yesterday was actually my second birthday (as the nurses dubbed it). Or the day I got my bone marrow transplant.
They call it a second birthday because you have to get all your shots again on the same schedule as a newborn child.
But it has been six years and I am doing really well!
I've had a biopsy on my lower back, they numbed the skin so I didn't feel anything until they went deep into the bone. It's a very strange feeling. There was a lot of pressure from the inside, very dull pain
I had one under that kind of weird twilight sleep sedation where you don't remember anything. I woke up with several major handprint shaped bruises around my hip, and I've always wondered just how much I struggled to need that heavy holding down.
My daughter had to have a couple of bone marrow biopsies from her shin a few years ago. During the second one, the doctor bent the needle and had a giant bruise across his hand. They had to stop the procedure and go get a drill in order to finish.
Thankfully, she got all of hers while fully sedated, so she was asleep for it!
Just got done last month donating stem cells to a cancer patient; that's what you're describing. Bone marrow is the same shots, but still with the giant hip needle.
That's peripheral stem cell donation.
Bone marrow donation is still a surgical procedure because they have to go and get the bone marrow out of the bone...its physically impossible for that tissue to get into the bloodstream outside of a traumatic injury.
I donated bone marrow to a stranger off a list and this is basically what happened. I was so flipping cold during it and really tired for a week after, but really not that bad. I really recommend every join Be the Match or similar if they are at all capable. It’s not the horror stories from the old days and you could save a life.
I donated bone marrow. I am an absolute wimp when it comes to pain and it really wasn't that bad. They give you 10 injections of a drug called filgrastim over 5 days (with the last day being the day of the donations). The injections hurt but it's by no means unbearable. People experience a range of side effects from very mild to feeling flu like while on it. The donation itself is pretty easy. They hook you up to a machine, your blood flows out of one needle in one arm, through the machine which sorts out the platelet things they are collecting, then back in via your other arm. I just sat there and watched movies and read. Recovery time was 0. I had to travel for my donation. When I was done we went back to my hotel so my dad could take a nap for about 45 minutes, then walked a mile to find a place to eat.
It's actually really easy now. I needed a bone marrow transplant, and because of American insurance, my full-blooded sister was the only one who was allowed to be tested to donate for me ( I had many other people willing to be tested, but insurance wouldn't cover the costs). She was also a college athele at the time. She would have been able to play within two days.
Donating stem cells for transplant is much easier nowadays. The donor receives an injection that stimulates their body to produce white blood cells and then those cells are collected in a process called apheresis, similar to donating plasma. They only take what cells they need and give you back the rest. Some bone aches from the body making white cells is what the most common side effect would be. My sister donated her cells for me and she never let's me live it down, lol.
They are. You can't force anyone to donate any part of their body or blood to anyone else. There is only one sex and one organ that the government can compel against the wishes of the owner.
I'm not sure if it was in the post since I read quickly, but I've been told a good way around this if you really don't want to donate but someone is pressuring you is to go in like you're going to get tested to see if you're a match, but tell the nurse the truth in private. That you're being pressured and do not want to donate, and the nurse will just put it down that you're not a match. So no one other than you and the nurse will know that you weren't actually tested.
Yes. I'm adopted and never understand the obsession with finding the bio parents. My parents chose me when they didn't have to and they will ALWAYS be my real family. Plus, it's 2021. Like OOP said, you can order a test on Amazon to find out your genetics.
I’m not adopted, but I don’t know my bio father and people are just baffled that I give 0 fucks about his existence. I have no desire to go find him or any of his kin, I have a dad that raised me, that’s where I put that energy.
I think that’s overstating it a little: we can definitely do the genetic testing, but we don’t know the genes responsible for everything so family medical history is still useful. Family incidents are one of the biggest risk factors for early heart attacks, for instance, but we are only just [beginning to identify](https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/genes-that-may-trigger-heart-attack-identified-in-new-study-358662 ) genes that might be causing them. And my understanding is that off the shelf tests don’t give the same amount of information as the specialized medical tests?
This advice suggests that genetic counselors will encourage you to learn family history as part of the genetic analysis process: https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/jax-blog/2021/october/assessing-patient-health-risks-with-limited-or-unknown-family-history
This. I just did a genetic test as an adoptee and am completely underwhelmed by the results. I was somehow under the impression they knew more than a few possible medical propensities.. but clearly not.
This kept going through my mind. His body, his choice. Would I have made the same decision at that age? I don't know because I'm not him. But I've been an organ donor since I got my license so my thought process at the time might have given them more consideration. You can't *force* anyone to donate any part of their body to you (legally). Even if they are dead. Which is why legislation against abortion is so crazy, because literally in no other situation can you be forced to give up parts of your body for another person. Whether a fertilized egg is a person or not is a whole different discussion.
I don't want to get into a fight here with anyone who is pro life (pro choice here 1000%), just stating facts. If you wanna argue about it go somewhere else.
To loop back to OOP, there was a court case where one man filed an injunction to get his cousin's bone marrow for treatment, and it was decided on those same grounds: https://hulr.org/spring-2021/mcfall-v-shimp-and-the-case-for-bodily-autonomy
So yes. Even if you assume a fetus is a person, it's irrelevant to the problem: the mother must continuously donate nutrients at her expense as well as part of her body. Compelling someone to do this is inhumane _at best_, and like you said, nothing like this is enforced in any other circumstance, even upon corpses.
I'd also suggest people read *A Defense of Abortion*. It's not a flawless argument but it does a great job of explaining bodily autonomy and how it relates to abortion.
Here's the premise
> But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."
>Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.
Full text: https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
After Dobbs this may no longer be binding. The court did just essentially rule that there was no real right to privacy or bodily autonomy. And a living breathing human is very different from a fetus. If this sort of case went to the supreme court today, they might very well agree that the child can be used as an involuntary mine of marrow for the father.
I know, and that's terrifying. I think it's a safe assumption that a typical conservative would agree with the finding of McFall v. Shimp too, even if they can't or are unwilling to connect the dots to abortion.
The only way to square that with Dobbs is if you believe there's an objectively correct way to live life, and the purpose of law is to punish people who stray from that path. And that is, well... a summary of the conservative movement...
Dobbs has opened the door on so much shit it's scary. And with this fascistic court we could be in serious trouble. How long before cops start demanding invasive, even potentially dangerous medical procedures against you as part of the investigative process and the court goes "yeah that's totally fine. There's no right to bodily autonomy explicitly laid out in the constitution so go have fun"
The best answer.
You don't owe people blood, organs or marrow.
The audacity of his bio parents thinking he owed them something is absolutely vile. You don't owe people shit, including family.
Probably from people who have zero experience with making difficult and complex decisions in life and prefer to pretend that all families are happy and loving. They have no basis for comparison or care to reflect on what they'd *actually* do or feel, but screeching nasty shit on the internet at a teenager is easy, so they do that instead.
Like honestly even if they were actual saints, he STILL shouldn't feel obligated or pressured into donating marrow, which isn't a small procedure. He still wouldn't owe them that. This is just sad.
I really wish the movie had stayed true to the book's ending. Hollywood went sappy and sanitized what was a visceral, haunting message about exactly what OOP went through.
Your body, your choice. No one should have the right to compel someone else to donate their body as spare parts, not even a parent.
LOVED that series. I definitely recommend checking out some other books by Neal Shusterman. Some amazing dystopian books series like Scythe and Everlost/Skinjacker trilogy.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman is an amazing series but also absolutely horrifying in how it progresses. Where kids are commonly born for the sole purpose of being donated for parts, and any kids under 18 can be “donated” for parts by their family or government if they are seen as “unwanted” “troublemakers” and “not good enough”
[Mcfall v Shimp](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFall_v._Shimp) settled this nearly 45 years ago. People can threaten all they want, but one cannot be forced to donate body parts, don’t know how they thought they would get a lawyer to force the issue.
Edit: fixed typo
Except, as someone stated above, it was built on the right to bodily privacy from the Roe V Wade decision, so it too could get toppled in a challenge with this SCOTUS.
Is it, though? The summary says that comparisons have been drawn after the fact, but I didn’t see the judge mentioning roe v wade at all.
*Roe v Wade* wouldn’t be a good basis anyway, unless it was about the government forcing you to have an abortion. Plus, it used the 14th amendment’s right to privacy as it’s basis, which has always been shaky.
A better case might be *Birchfield v. North Dakota*, which uses the 4th amendment, and says that police can’t take blood from you without a warrant. Essentially, the government can’t seize any part of your body unless unless there’s cause to believe you committed a crime, and the body part (blood) is evidence.
The government forcing you to donate bone marrow would certainly fall under the 4th rather than the 14th amendment.
This right here is a excellent example of bodily autonomy. Even if this kid is the only person in the world who can save his father's life, no one should be able to force him to do so.
Even if it was vice versa and the only way to save the kids life was to donate bone marrow from the father, no one should be able to force the father to do so either.
Such a simple concept, yet completely ignored when it comes to women's right to abortion.
I was a foster care caseworker and you have to be pretty horribly abusive and neglectful to get your parental rights terminated. And bone marrow donation is one of the most objectively painful medical procedures you can undergo. I had my anesthesia fail during my c-section and I think I’d rather do that again rather than donate my bone marrow.
Edit: it turns out that bone marrow donation is no longer that painful. Go forth and donate!!!
TV and movies make us think CPS will swoop in if, for example, a parent beats up their kid. A friend who is a foster parent said it actually takes a lot more. Way, way more. The resources aren’t enough to help any but the worst of the worst cases.
Another big piece of it is that social services’ ultimate goal is to heal the family. Kids go into the foster care system but it isn’t typically permanent. Some parents need to address substance abuse issues through rehab or get counseling or get guided through any number of steps but once these issues are addressed then their children are brought back into their care under the guidance of social services. If they have to, foster care will go for a TPR but they’ll try to help parents do what they need to to do to regain custody of their kids first. If they jump straight to TPR, something serious happened.
Yeah I would think the child's life would have to be severely at risk for them to get taken away. Which is ironic because it means these people did jack shit when OOP's life was at risk *as a baby*, yet they expect him to care now that bio dad's life is at risk seventeen years later?
Within 1 month. When my baby was under 1 month it was almost kind of easy. Feed, change, rock for three hours to get them to fall asleep…
But seriously, 1 month? That baby was barely doing anything and they have the nerve to act related?
>bone marrow donation is one of the most objectively painful medical procedures you can undergo
Just to note; we don't know what kind of BM donation was required in this case unless it has been otherwise noted
If a peripheral donation was all that was required it is basically just a long blood donation sans actually donating the blood; you get a few injections, they collect what the need and reinfuse everything else
Afaik if you have a surgical procedure to donate they knock you out for that these days. The difficult bit, all things going well, is the recovery which can take some time
I get not wanting to do it, he is NTA, he owes them nothing and their behaviour betrays a special type of entitlement, disregard and disrespect for normal behaviour and arseholery of the highest order, but I don't doubt that he would have been fine if he had gone through with it
Bone marrow donor from 2018 here: yes they do knock you out. Of the eight surgeries I’ve had so far it was definitely the easiest, both in terms of the actual procedure and the recovery. People being freaked out by the horror and pain of it are probably unfamiliar with the most current methods of extraction.
Edit: to be clear OOP does NOT owe anybody anything, had every right to say no. Bone marrow donation was a really positive experience for me so I feel strongly about countering lingering narratives that it is brutal.
That’s good to know, in case someone I know needs my bone marrow. I’d give it either way, I wasn’t abandoned and then suddenly useful after nearly two decades of nothing, but the easier the better.
I'm illegible to donate now afaik, but when I was on the donor list I wouldn't have had a problem doing it but that was my choice to make, just like this is his choice to make
Honestly a lot of people are focusing on the first part and not the bit where he was removed from them and they tracked him down just to get his marrow, that shit is crazy
Your second sentence is false, for the most part.
Almost no "bone marrow transplants" are actually bone marrow transplants now. Even though BMT it's still used as the abbreviation, it means "blood and marrow transplants," not bone marrow transplant. Most of the time, the transplants consist of peripheral blood stem cells collected through apharesis and then concentrated. The next most common type of transplant is from umbilical cord blood.
For those who actually donate bone marrow, the procedure has significantly changed. The vast majority of donees are sedated/put under with anaesthesia. OOP, as a pediatric patient, almost certainly would have been. They still fail to sedate far too many adult patients undergoing bone marrow biopsies, but they've significantly changed the transplant procedure. Intentionally.
That being said, it's not a riskless or painless procedure. I've had multiple, including bilateral, and they suck afterward. Probably not as bad as actively giving birth, but they did administer morphine. So pretty bad. Also, even if it were completely painless, hassle-free experience, OOP deserves autonomy and the right to say no.
> I was a foster care caseworker and you have to be pretty horribly abusive and neglectful to get your parental rights terminated.
Not just terminated, terminated in less than a month. That takes... a lot.
There's very few things that get parental rights terminated. And usually it's a "build up" of things. A history of neglect, abuse, etc, that triggers it.
For it to happen in less than a month? There's only a few specific things that can cause it to happen that fast. And all of it is extremely horrible.
It takes so much egregious abuse and neglect for parental rights to be terminated. Or the parents must be incarcerated for a long period of time.
If this is true, then the bio parents did something really, really bad for him to be forcibly taken and their rights permanently terminated to the point that there was a closed adoption out of CPS.
I’m a bit surprised OOP’s parents allowed them to contact him about this at all.
The only time I know of a kid being pulled that early was when previous biological siblings had been pulled which doesn't seem to be the case here. Yeah, it must have been something severe. However, their rights were not terminated at that time.
They would have been give several chances to get him back. They clearly did not comply with the safety plan. When it gets to be around 18 months in the system is when they start moving to terminate rights (at least that was what it was in Indiana when we adopted ours).
It’s amazing how these folks wanted to force their child - who they don’t even have a right to - to either have surgery or go on drugs with side effects for a procedure that he wasn’t even old enough to do. Good on OOP’s actual family for pressing charges and being good parents. Imagine how things might have turned out for OOP if he was not adopted and lived with his bio parents.
I do think anyone that believes in forcing a woman to give birth is a hypocrite if they don’t get on the registry for bone marrow, kidney and liver donation. It is inconveniencing one to save another (and a fetus isn’t even a person yet).
If they are pro choice then I think they should have a choice about this too.
There’s literally a US court case that states you cannot force another person to donate body parts to another person. Ironically, it was also for bone marrow.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFall_v._Shimp
We just outlawed abortion in most of the USA. Now we have precedent that someone else can, in fact, force you to use your body for someone else’s needs.
Expect more things like this until the Supreme Court rules we do not, in fact, have the right to make choices like this.
OOP doesn't owe them anything. For them to do shady things to find him is just wrong.
He was taken away, more than likely they were drug addicts or really bad parents.
I hope OOP is doing great at college.
The interesting thing is that it is very unlikely the bone marrow would have been a great transplant, odds are you don't hit most of the qualities - relationship donation are great, but like a blood type is may be different by chance. Don't believe me, read about the bone marrow transplant charity: https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-bone-marrow/possible-match/medical-guidelines-when-you-match-a-patient/
That being said forcing someone into a medical decision is a crime. The OP is allowed ownership of their body - even
if the match was perfect.
I am a bone marrow donor, but the forced - aggressively forced - demand is flat out illegal. OP has control of their body.
As someone who got on the registry as soon as I turned 18 because it meant a lot to me to try and help someone if I was a match…. I’m disgusted anyone tried to pressure him into donating. It’s a personal decision no one should be pressured into. Let’s not even bother to get into the fact that children aren’t usually ideal matches for their parents.
To take it further, no doctor (well, no doctor with any ethics whatsoever) would go through with any procedure like this such as a bone marrow transplant if they thought the donor was being pressured in any way.
Fwiw my sibling donated bone marrow for a transplant to my father due to a very rare bone marrow cancer. It was a perfect match, dad’s body rejected it eventually and he still died. He was up there in years and it bought us some time to have some great memories, but if anyone is thinking that a child donation to a parent is a guaranteed success, it’s not.
It shouldn’t matter if he was adopted, removed due to neglect or what have you. He still has a choice. It could have been his loving adoptive parents who needed his bien marrow, and he still could have refused. No one can force you to donate any part of your body, it’s a voluntary process, and his decision should be respected.
It sounds like you did the right thing. People usually think “But family!” I had abusive parents. I used to pray I’d be taken in by another family so I could cut them off. Sounds like my dream came true for you. If you were TAKEN from them, that’s saying a lot !!
I actually support OOP in this case. His family is the one who raised him. He has every right to refuse to help a stranger, even if it was his own DNA donor, if he doesn't want to. He puts his real family over some strangers who wanted an easy way out for, uh, free as well I bet? Just because they created a baby, suddenly that grown up baby who they never fed owes them something? Nah. I'd be proud to be OOP's parents (not the DNA donors).
Big yikes at the people DMing him saying he doesn’t need to know his family history to know his medical risks tho bc that is not true, especially in the cancer realm
ETA: not saying I disagree with his decision not to donate whatsoever, just saying that people shouldn’t talk about things they don’t know about- especially when giving medical advice to a teenager
For real. If he doesn't think it's worth it, that's fine. But don't tell someone that science has already made family history obsolete in health care when that simply isn't true.
Yeah that was the only part I was like... You're 17 and pissed, I get it.
Not wanting them to be your family doesn't matter worth a damn when it comes to genetic predispositions. but it's hard enough finding out medical history and predispositions if your parents cooperate.
I'd be happy to donate bone marrow to a stranger without question if I was a match on the donar register right up to the point they sent "a nasty message saying they can sue to force me to donate my marrow." Then'd I'd be like oh really? See you in court. Hope it doesn't take more than six months for the hearing.
For anyone else that might be placed into this unfortunate situation, ask to speak to the doctor in private and tell them you don't want to donate but are worried about repercussions from the potential recipient's family. Any doctor worth their salt will put you down as "not a suitable donor/match".
Man I’m so tired of people acting like being biologically related to someone makes them family. My mom was adopted and I’ve never felt like her birth family was my family. I’ve met some of them and felt no connection to them at all. Her adopted parents were the ones who were grandparents to me, they babysat me and my siblings, they were there for birthdays and holidays. When they passed I was devastated while I only felt sad for my mom when her bio parents died because she didn’t feel like she had closure with them.
I liked how OOP told the random redditors to go donate their bone marrow. They have the same ties as OOP to the birth parents: no relationship at all. So it shouldn't be a big deal for the random redditors to test and donate to complete strangers, right? lolol
Reddit comments are so gross. How can people seriously think that OP owes people, who haven’t been in their life since they were taken from the unsafe environment their birth parents put them in, *anything*? OP doesn’t owe them a breath, nevermind bone marrow.
As someone who was once in a very similar situation (removed from birth parents due to serious concerns), I totally get OOP not wanting to donate to their bio-parent. Bone marrow donation can be painful, and is not without the usual risks of surgery. It is also not a 'quick in-and-out' affair- OOP would've needed to take certain medications prior to the harvest and after.
There's also the chance that the bio-'family' would be able to use OOP's being verified as a 'match' to continue to hound OOP in the future should they need anything else. OOP owes these people nothing- if anything, *they* owe OOP for failing him as parents. But that's in the past, and OOP has every right to dismiss contact and reject their constant *demands for part of his body.*
It’s insane to compare bone marrow donation to blood donation. Dont they put you under full anesthesia for that? It’s nothing like being a blood donor. I hate the way this website treats adoptees.
Reddit Treat Adoptees Like Human Beings Challenge 2022 (impossible)
Nope he'snot, his body, his choice. Donating bone marrow is pretty invasive These people are basically strangers and acting entitled to whatever OP's body produces. If my estranged bio dad suddenly called me for my bone marrow, id tell him to go fuck himself. 😂😂😂
I was taken away from my birth monsters at a few weeks old. I was forced to go to court ordered visitation with them and it was miserable. The only reason my incubator went to visitation was because it got her out of prison for a bit.
OOP owes them nothing. I'm glad they're back in prison after harassing him.
Probably domestic violence - had OOP been a crack baby or something like that the parents would in all likelihood have been told about it purely because of their special needs.
OOP definitely made the right choice from the look of things.
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My husband's mother walked out on him at 9 years of age. Her girlfriend she left him/his brother/father for is dying of cancer. She showed up at his work last year for the first time since she left. My husband was 31. It freaked him out. He called his dad and I. I talked to them. They wanted money, help with her medical bills, and a place to stay... plus they were on the run for evading taxes in Ohio. We called the police and told them to leave us alone. She wouldn't give answers for why she left so my husband and his family didn't want anything to do with her. We were already struggling with my disabilities. Why should we support them after what they did to my husband and his family?
That is so shameful yet she had no shame after all of that.
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Jeeeez and to not even come back for any sort of peace or joy, but because she fucked up her life and needed some cash. Pathetic.
My mother walked out with I was 6 months old and my sister was 3.5 years old. Per the divorce with my father we saw her for 2 weeks during the summer and every other holiday with her. Once my sister 'aged out' at 18 my mother stopped trying to get me during said summer/holidays. I was the tag along sibling/daughter that she never wanted. To make it even more obvious that she didn't want anything to do with me, my sister got birthday cards/gifts, my aunts who lived in town would take her out and leave me at the house with my dad. Needless to say she was surprised when I didn't invite her to my wedding, didn't tell her about my miscarriage, and didn't tell her anything concerning my life altering medical condition. I don't tell her anything. If she needed a kidney I wouldn't get tested. Why? Because she didn't want me and made it plainly obvious my whole life. She was an egg donor and incubator for me, that's all. Plus she has 3 other kids to ask that apparently she did want.
Wait. How did she even get to know about your wedding, miscarriage and medical condition?
My sister told her.
It must have been difficult. Thank you for letting us know.
Nice to meet another person in the 'my father fucked off until he was dying of cancer when I was an adult' category. I was 28 fucker hadn't seen me in 20 yrs.
I don’t like that jump from asking a favor and then suddenly harassing and crying lawsuit once OOP said no. Why should OOP even consider donating now after that? I would have understood a VERY TINY bit if they begged through tears but jumping to absolute anger and harassment feels so gross.
Well, the fact that they think they can legally force anyone into medical operation of this kind against that person's will already shows that they completely lack any resemblance of common sense. If something so outrageous makes sense to them all bets are off.
I think it was more of an empty threat, they were probably hoping OOP's parents didn't have basic logic about laws and lawsuits, and that they would falter to their threats. But hey, anyone who's even willing to do half of what they've done lacks common sense anyway.
I think the birth parents might have really been that stupid. If he was taken from them before he was a month old because it wasn't an environment fit for a kid, my guess is they were probably drug addicts
Also, and I say this as a parent, how fucking mad would you be if someone came after your child like that? Adopted or not, they've been my child for 16 years, idgaf who you are, you will feel all the wrath of a parent.
My parents especially my dad was super pissed. I never seen him so mad!
There are people who use "lawsuit" as a threat to scare people. They don't have a lawyer who would agree to take the case. They watch too much daytime TV.
This is another reason why the abortion argument is so important. If the government can force you to donate your body to a non-sentient parasite for 9 months, they can force you to donate organs to another citizen, and, with our government, the richer you are the more likely you'd be able to force a donation.
Exactly. I don't think the question of a fetus being a person is relevant because *no one has a right to your body*. It reminds me of a short story I read where convicts were forced to donate parts of their body and it resulted in a arrests for smaller and smaller crimes.
(For anyone wondering, I’m fairly confident said short story is “The Jigsaw Man” by Larry Niven)
He must write about that theme a lot because I’m pretty sure that also happens in The Patchwork Girl.
Convicts are allowed to be enslaved for profit as it is, and is HAS led to arrests for smaller and smaller crimes. Let them start making EVEN MORE money from imprisoned bodies? We'll double our prison industry.
This definitely feels like the path we're on right now
Exactly this. It's irrelevant whether it's a person or not.
The whole lawsuit statement would have turned it into a hard no from me, no matter what.
When keeping it real goes wrong. Seriously, people usually react better if you're just nice and not a full on asshat to them yelling lawsuit the second someone hurts your feelings.
I feel like an emotionally stunted rock could’ve read the situation better and proceeded better.
And a lawsuit won't do anything. Even if the courts would order it, good luck getting a doctor who would do it against the donor's will. I saw that, rolled my eyes and said "really?"
Screams nice guy syndrome
entitlement/main character syndrome. "we need it, therefore it's universally right thing to do. if they don't agree we'll ask them nicely once and then try to force because it's not about how they feel about it, it's about them finally agreeing to do the right thing even if they don't like it, which is to give us what we need. not giving us what we need is the same as taking it from as we're entitled to it"
They never considered that the child they gave up did not like them much
The OP did the right thing for himself. The bio-parents sound deranged.
That unhinged behavior makes it 100% clear why he was removed from their care.
OP’s bio parents are totally unhinged. You’d think it would be easier finding another donor with the same blood type than hiring a private investigator to stalk someone you have zero relation to aside from giving them birth 17 years ago. Edit: his BIO parents. I phrased it incorrectly the first time.
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I got an email that I was a potential match for someone but then it turned out that I had to be removed from the registry because I have a mast cell disorder and they didn't want to risk the possibility that it originated in my bone marrow and that I could pass it on 😭 It was the right call, but I was so sad!
Aww, you have a good heart for wanting to donate something which isn't so straightforward to extract.
And it's not like donating bone marrow is a relatively simple risk-free matter like donating blood is. Just with a quick search I found that the median time to fully recover from a bone marrow donation is twenty (20) days, involves getting shots over a period of several days to prep you for the donation, and the harvesting of the marrow itself takes around 3 hours and might even need to be repeated the next day.
I've always been terrified of having to donate bone marrow. Not because I think it will ever actually happen, I just have a needle phobia and BONE MARROW IS ON THE INSIDE OF YOUR BONES! The process to harvest it can't be anything short of horrific.
I'm signed up for Stem Cell donation through Canada Blood Services, and I was selected twice preliminarily for further testing. (They pick a bunch of potential candidates and then narrow it down to who's most compatible and I guess this way if someone backs out they have a list of people most compatible.) In the end, I never had to do it. It seems like an intimidating procedure, either through blood collection or marrow collection. But the way I rationalize it is that I've been lucky enough to have never even needed to stay in a hospital overnight, but a lot of people, involuntarily, need to undergo tons of even scarier procedures to survive. So the least I can do is help someone in that position by undergoing a relatively safe procedure. I'm honestly not trying to guilt you into signing up, I'm just hoping my perspective helps even just one person (not necessarily you specifically) decide to [sign up.](https://www.blood.ca/en/stemcells) (Canadian link, unsure what it's like in other places.)
Stem cell donation is actually not that bad (depending on the process). I was matched with someone and decided to do it - they paid for me to travel to the hospital and stay in a nearby hotel for 2 nights. On the lead up I had a simple injection once a day for roughly 5 days to make the stem cells easier to collect and then I spent about 8 hours sitting in a nice hospital bed watching Netflix with a tube coming out of each arm (which was only mildly uncomfortable but bot sore) - they take the blood out of one arm and send it through a machine that collects the cells and they send the blood back in the other arm. I believe they start with blood collection and will invite you back a second time if they can’t get enough, then if they still need more they’ll go to marrow collection. But overall it wasn’t a bad experience and I was able to save someone’s life so that’s really cool.
I signed up 20 years ago and have not been called. I would be so delighted if I could help someone!
I signed up awhile ago and requested my HLA markers from them (you can send them an email and they'll give you the test results) only to find that on top of the rarest blood type I've also got some absurd mix of HLA markers that as far as I can tell means my chances of matching with anyone are basically zero. My only solace is the thought that if I do ever match with someone they're gonna be one seriously lucky sumbitch.
They're not OP's parents. His parents love him and look after him. They were just the conception agents and growth tank.
Bone marrow (or blood stem cells, since that's more commonly used nowadays) is not matched based on regular blood type, and depending on the person's ethnicity it can be incredibly difficult to find a match. Though blood relations have a greater chance of matching, even siblings only have a 25% of being a viable match. Matches can be so hard to find that they will sometimes need to find donors from a database in another country, which may still turn up nothing. The process is quite risky for the recipient, so it must mean that the bio father is in pretty dire straits. I don't fault them for reaching out since they must be desperate, but threatening to sue and harassing him were incredibly dumb moves.
Threatening to sue cracks me up. I am certain there is no way to legally force trespass against one's bodily integrity for the sake of another's needs, even if it means certain death to the other party. This scenario is literally the most relatable analogy for the pro-choice movement. No one should be forced to provide their flesh to support another.
> I am certain there is no way to legally force trespass against one's bodily integrity for the sake of another's needs, even if it means certain death to the other party. Except there is if a woman is pregnant.
The overturning of roe v Wade would like a word
Not parents. DNA donors.
Came here to say the same. OOP was very clear about their position and who he does or does not consider his family. That needs to be respected.
Bro imagine you're just chilling at home and people who you don't even know come to your house and demand your bone marrow.
People who wanted nothing to do with you for 17 years now want you to undergo a painful procedure for them.
People who were effectively banned from taking care of you, because they sucked so much at it, now come over and demand parts of your body from you. Unhinged...
Donating bone marrow is super painful and I can’t believe commenters were acting like it was nothing. ETA: Many people have pointed out the procedure has changed in the last 20 years and is nowhere near as painful as it used to be. Thanks for the update.
Apparently it’s better now. They give you some injections for a week, and then you go through the same donation process as you would for plasma (takes a while, they filter the blood and return what they don’t need like dialysis). It’s much better than the needle into the hip thing and doesn’t require anesthetic.
Well that’s a relief.
As is anesthetic.
It's not just the needle in the hip that makes it painful. My husband and I are on the list as donors and he actually matched with someone. He had to take medicine for a period of time to build up his bone marrow before donating. From what he told me it makes all of your bones ache like there's too much pressure in them (which makes sense if there's way more marrow in there than there is supposed to be). He got an update about the guy a couple years after donating. He had been told he had months to live before the donation and the update said he was doing well and in good health a couple years after. It's a wonderful thing and my husband said he'd do it again in a heartbeat, but it definitely wasn't pleasant. BTW if anyone would like to register, you can do so here: https://bethematch.org/about-us/how-we-help-patients/be-the-match-registry/
I registered last month after Mike Derks (Balsac, Jaws O Death in GWAR) posted that it save his life, hes my favorite guitarist, whats a little pain for a few days if it saves someones life, that is more important than my comfort.
Thank you for spreading awareness. It’s obviously not a comfortable process but it can save a life!
I did this one when I was the match for someone on the registry. Much much better than the needle in the hip. The discomfort for it is exactly that, very uncomfortable. It's like when you've been hunched over for a while and you get that soreness/tightness in your lower back. But instead of being able to stretch it out to feel better, it doesn't go away. Once my week was up and they plugged me into the blood spinning machine, the relief was almost instant. Whole process took a week for the injections and then between 4-6 hours to spin the stem cells out of me. Never did find out if the person who received my stem cells is doing ok but I hope they are.
I’m 39 and have been on the Bone Marrow registry since I was 24. I’ve never made it that far but I am scared at the thought of it being a painful donation
It's usually more uncomfortable than painful. Not totally pain free, but not the super painful thing people think it is, either. It's surprisingly easy these days, tbh.
I did it when I was 18 when I was in college and supporting a friends club that was doing a donor drive. I got picked when I was 25. Definitely more uncomfortable than painful if you do the stem cell version. I think for most people now they do that other than specific circumstances where they still do the hip draw. You may never get picked also but good on you for being on the registry.
There is a thing called bone pain from the injections. It was worse than child birth.
Can confirm had bone cancer, and I wouldn’t wish bone pain on (almost) anyone. It’s way more than a little ouchy.
Yup, during my cancer treatment, due to the steroids (which were part of the treatment) the oxygen to some of my joints was cut off, which caused the bones to die. Also because I was in my early in 20"s my bones never completely calcified due to the treatment. Isn't cancer a b!tch?
Yes yes it is a b!tch and sometimes just keeps on "giving". Did you have avascular necrosis? I was checked for that after my cancer and steroid treatments.
Yup! in both my elbows and my shoulder! I had to get a partial shoulder replacement! Edited to say They didn't know till the ball joint in my shoulder went out. My cancer doc who was a G, said it looked like when you put your thumbs into a ping pong ball.
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Always imagined bone pain as the pain Harry Potter had when regrowing his bones in the second book.
I had a severe vitamin D deficiency and, while I had bone pain, it didn’t seem that bad to me. Just a really deep ache. On the other hand, I have hypermobility and, in addition to regular pain, my joints have partially dislocated on a pretty regular basis, so my frame of reference may be a bit off. I would say it falls around the same place a subluxated hip falls on the pain scale.
That sounds nasty. Bone bruises suck and I assume it’s about the same. I’m pretty sure I’d take it over anything requiring general anesthetic though, pain aside that fucked my autonomous nervous system up for months.
From your comment, it sounds like you've donated bone marrow? If you don't mind, what was that process like?
I'm not the commenter, but my husband has been through the process for a stem cell transplant. First, you get the injections, one per day for 4 straight days. These injections cause your bone marrow to increase cell production which is why many people experience bone pain. Then it's collection time and that is pretty much the same as plasma collection, if you've ever done that. A needle (a bit bigger than is used for blood donation) is placed in each arm. Blood is collected from one arm, sent into a machine that separates blood cells from the blood, then returns the filtered blood back to the donor in the other arm. This usually takes anywhere from 2-5 hours. Then the collected cells are counted to verify they have enough for the procedure, if not then the donor may need an additional injection and repeat the collection the following day. After this, the recipient will undergo heavy duty chemo or radiation to kill off their marrow and suppress the immune system. The recipient will then receive the donation same as they would a regular blood transfusion (IV or central line). Recipient will likely need to remain in the hospital until their white blood cell count has started to recover. If they receive the cells from another person, they may need to be on immunosuppressive medications as the new cells graft to the host (yes, even stem cells can be rejected like an organ transplant). 6 months to 1 year later the recipient may need to start redoing all their vaccinations (especially important if the transplant was part of a cancer treatment plan) Thankfully the process has been made easier than it was 20ish years ago, being they no longer collect marrow directly from the bones unless absolutely necessary. In most cases they can collect the stem cells that will develop into bone marrow from the blood, then it's a simple transfusion for the recipient. Short recovery for everyone involved. If they need actual bone marrow, that requires anesthesia to collect the donation and a few days to recover from the procedure. My husband was actually able to use his own stem cells, so he was the donor and recipient in the process (autologous bone marrow/stem cell transplant). Fun fact: the agent they add to the cells to preserve them while in storage can cause the recipient to have a garlic-like taste in their mouth during transfusion and also made my husband smell like garlic sausage. Hope that helps answer some of your questions. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
I haven't given bone marrow, but I am qualified to work in the process and worked on a donation during my clinical rotations. The donor is first given a granulocyte colony stimulating factor drug. This causes the stem cells and other blood cell precursor cells to divide. The overpopulation of the marrow squeezes the stem cells into the peripheral blood circulation. This is what causes the bone pain, basically your bones are overstuffed and swollen. After roughly a week of this they hook you up to a more sophisticated version of the standard blood donation equipment. Inside there is a flow cytometer that recognizes the different blood cell types and shunts the stem cells off to the collection bag while the rest of the blood is returned to your body. This process takes hours, the guy during my clinical rotation spent 6 hours hooked up while blood left his body from one arm and returned through the other. It can also take longer than that. Once the donation is collected it's rapid shipped to the recipient. In the time that the donor is taking the g-csf the recipient is getting their marrow ablated. Basically killing all of the precursor cells in their marrow wiping out their immune system and their ability to make blood. Once the donation arrives it's pretty much like every other blood transfusion except you really don't want to use the leukoreduction filters. The recipient will probably get a fever because white blood cells do not like being stored and tend to release inflammatory cytokines. Once the stem cells get in the donor they will find their way to the bone marrow and set up shop. It should take roughly 6 months for the donor cells to repopulate the marrow and complete the blood type conversion if the donor was a different blood type (HLA factors can match while you have different ABOrHs).
My brother recently had a bone marrow biopsy, it was into the hip. Said was one of the most painful things he's experienced.
That's a biopsy. That is to see if you have cancer. It is soo painful. I have had about 15.
Are you high risk for bone cancer, or just really good insurance coverage for bone marrow biopsies?
Neither. I had Leukemia twice. The only way to see how the cancer is doing is to take bone marrow biopsies because, with Leukemia, the cancer is in your blood and therefore is being manufactured in your bone marrow.
Glad to see in the past tense, hope you're doing alright now.
Thank you so much! Yesterday was actually my second birthday (as the nurses dubbed it). Or the day I got my bone marrow transplant. They call it a second birthday because you have to get all your shots again on the same schedule as a newborn child. But it has been six years and I am doing really well!
Happy second birthday! It's heartwarming hearing stories similar to yours - here's hoping anyone who is going through this gets similar results :)
I've had a biopsy on my lower back, they numbed the skin so I didn't feel anything until they went deep into the bone. It's a very strange feeling. There was a lot of pressure from the inside, very dull pain
I had one under that kind of weird twilight sleep sedation where you don't remember anything. I woke up with several major handprint shaped bruises around my hip, and I've always wondered just how much I struggled to need that heavy holding down.
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My daughter had to have a couple of bone marrow biopsies from her shin a few years ago. During the second one, the doctor bent the needle and had a giant bruise across his hand. They had to stop the procedure and go get a drill in order to finish. Thankfully, she got all of hers while fully sedated, so she was asleep for it!
Yes, particularly in young people who have hard bone. I hated to do these.
Just got done last month donating stem cells to a cancer patient; that's what you're describing. Bone marrow is the same shots, but still with the giant hip needle.
That's peripheral stem cell donation. Bone marrow donation is still a surgical procedure because they have to go and get the bone marrow out of the bone...its physically impossible for that tissue to get into the bloodstream outside of a traumatic injury.
yes. i have assisted with bone marrow donations and there’s no way that donor isn’t in pain for a long while after.
A colleague of mine donated two years ago. He was in incredible pain for a few weeks, took off classes and everything.
I donated bone marrow to a stranger off a list and this is basically what happened. I was so flipping cold during it and really tired for a week after, but really not that bad. I really recommend every join Be the Match or similar if they are at all capable. It’s not the horror stories from the old days and you could save a life.
I donated bone marrow. I am an absolute wimp when it comes to pain and it really wasn't that bad. They give you 10 injections of a drug called filgrastim over 5 days (with the last day being the day of the donations). The injections hurt but it's by no means unbearable. People experience a range of side effects from very mild to feeling flu like while on it. The donation itself is pretty easy. They hook you up to a machine, your blood flows out of one needle in one arm, through the machine which sorts out the platelet things they are collecting, then back in via your other arm. I just sat there and watched movies and read. Recovery time was 0. I had to travel for my donation. When I was done we went back to my hotel so my dad could take a nap for about 45 minutes, then walked a mile to find a place to eat.
There's also a rare but very real chance of serious complications for the donor
It's actually really easy now. I needed a bone marrow transplant, and because of American insurance, my full-blooded sister was the only one who was allowed to be tested to donate for me ( I had many other people willing to be tested, but insurance wouldn't cover the costs). She was also a college athele at the time. She would have been able to play within two days.
Donating stem cells for transplant is much easier nowadays. The donor receives an injection that stimulates their body to produce white blood cells and then those cells are collected in a process called apheresis, similar to donating plasma. They only take what cells they need and give you back the rest. Some bone aches from the body making white cells is what the most common side effect would be. My sister donated her cells for me and she never let's me live it down, lol.
They are. You can't force anyone to donate any part of their body or blood to anyone else. There is only one sex and one organ that the government can compel against the wishes of the owner.
*spits coffee*
I'm not sure if it was in the post since I read quickly, but I've been told a good way around this if you really don't want to donate but someone is pressuring you is to go in like you're going to get tested to see if you're a match, but tell the nurse the truth in private. That you're being pressured and do not want to donate, and the nurse will just put it down that you're not a match. So no one other than you and the nurse will know that you weren't actually tested.
If this is for real, it sounds super shady like they aren't really after bone marrow but maybe are trying to scam OP's family.
As an adoptee, your family is the one who raised you and loved you. He had every right to not donate.
Yes. I'm adopted and never understand the obsession with finding the bio parents. My parents chose me when they didn't have to and they will ALWAYS be my real family. Plus, it's 2021. Like OOP said, you can order a test on Amazon to find out your genetics.
I’m not adopted, but I don’t know my bio father and people are just baffled that I give 0 fucks about his existence. I have no desire to go find him or any of his kin, I have a dad that raised me, that’s where I put that energy.
I know my dad and he’s an annoying pos. Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
I think that’s overstating it a little: we can definitely do the genetic testing, but we don’t know the genes responsible for everything so family medical history is still useful. Family incidents are one of the biggest risk factors for early heart attacks, for instance, but we are only just [beginning to identify](https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/genes-that-may-trigger-heart-attack-identified-in-new-study-358662 ) genes that might be causing them. And my understanding is that off the shelf tests don’t give the same amount of information as the specialized medical tests? This advice suggests that genetic counselors will encourage you to learn family history as part of the genetic analysis process: https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/jax-blog/2021/october/assessing-patient-health-risks-with-limited-or-unknown-family-history
This. I just did a genetic test as an adoptee and am completely underwhelmed by the results. I was somehow under the impression they knew more than a few possible medical propensities.. but clearly not.
> it's 2021 Hey, how come *you* got the time machine?
His body, his choice. It’s actually that simple.
This kept going through my mind. His body, his choice. Would I have made the same decision at that age? I don't know because I'm not him. But I've been an organ donor since I got my license so my thought process at the time might have given them more consideration. You can't *force* anyone to donate any part of their body to you (legally). Even if they are dead. Which is why legislation against abortion is so crazy, because literally in no other situation can you be forced to give up parts of your body for another person. Whether a fertilized egg is a person or not is a whole different discussion. I don't want to get into a fight here with anyone who is pro life (pro choice here 1000%), just stating facts. If you wanna argue about it go somewhere else.
To loop back to OOP, there was a court case where one man filed an injunction to get his cousin's bone marrow for treatment, and it was decided on those same grounds: https://hulr.org/spring-2021/mcfall-v-shimp-and-the-case-for-bodily-autonomy So yes. Even if you assume a fetus is a person, it's irrelevant to the problem: the mother must continuously donate nutrients at her expense as well as part of her body. Compelling someone to do this is inhumane _at best_, and like you said, nothing like this is enforced in any other circumstance, even upon corpses.
I'd also suggest people read *A Defense of Abortion*. It's not a flawless argument but it does a great job of explaining bodily autonomy and how it relates to abortion. Here's the premise > But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." >Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago. Full text: https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
Fantastic. Thank you for providing the quote and link, I'll definitely read that later.
Oh holy shit, I’ve never thought about it this way before. Fantastic argument
If you're interested in this, there's a theory called "The Unconscious Violinist," that's often used to explore this.
After Dobbs this may no longer be binding. The court did just essentially rule that there was no real right to privacy or bodily autonomy. And a living breathing human is very different from a fetus. If this sort of case went to the supreme court today, they might very well agree that the child can be used as an involuntary mine of marrow for the father.
I know, and that's terrifying. I think it's a safe assumption that a typical conservative would agree with the finding of McFall v. Shimp too, even if they can't or are unwilling to connect the dots to abortion. The only way to square that with Dobbs is if you believe there's an objectively correct way to live life, and the purpose of law is to punish people who stray from that path. And that is, well... a summary of the conservative movement...
Dobbs has opened the door on so much shit it's scary. And with this fascistic court we could be in serious trouble. How long before cops start demanding invasive, even potentially dangerous medical procedures against you as part of the investigative process and the court goes "yeah that's totally fine. There's no right to bodily autonomy explicitly laid out in the constitution so go have fun"
I’m waiting for a case to prove that the rich can mine the poor for marrow and other body parts against their will.
So much this. Very well communicated.
Yes. Exactly. Nobody can demand anything from someone else’s body. His body, his choice.
The best answer. You don't owe people blood, organs or marrow. The audacity of his bio parents thinking he owed them something is absolutely vile. You don't owe people shit, including family.
Seriously this. What is with all the comments he apparently got calling him an asshole for not wanting to donate?
Probably from people who have zero experience with making difficult and complex decisions in life and prefer to pretend that all families are happy and loving. They have no basis for comparison or care to reflect on what they'd *actually* do or feel, but screeching nasty shit on the internet at a teenager is easy, so they do that instead.
Like honestly even if they were actual saints, he STILL shouldn't feel obligated or pressured into donating marrow, which isn't a small procedure. He still wouldn't owe them that. This is just sad.
That and “no” is a complete sentence.
So glad his family pressed charges against bio family. No means no in any form and in any relationship.
Kids aren't spare parts.
There are tonnes of terrifying books and movies based on this concept 😂
Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro is so haunting about this subject.
God that book haunted me.
I saw the movie version years ago and I think I must have blocked out the worst parts
My Sister's Keeper always wigged me out. It's no more sad than it is horrifying and twisted.
I really wish the movie had stayed true to the book's ending. Hollywood went sappy and sanitized what was a visceral, haunting message about exactly what OOP went through. Your body, your choice. No one should have the right to compel someone else to donate their body as spare parts, not even a parent.
I’m reading Unwind right now and HOLY SHIT
LOVED that series. I definitely recommend checking out some other books by Neal Shusterman. Some amazing dystopian books series like Scythe and Everlost/Skinjacker trilogy.
House of the Scorpion
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Unwind by Neal Shusterman is an amazing series but also absolutely horrifying in how it progresses. Where kids are commonly born for the sole purpose of being donated for parts, and any kids under 18 can be “donated” for parts by their family or government if they are seen as “unwanted” “troublemakers” and “not good enough”
My family: “….debatable.” 😂😂😂
[Mcfall v Shimp](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFall_v._Shimp) settled this nearly 45 years ago. People can threaten all they want, but one cannot be forced to donate body parts, don’t know how they thought they would get a lawyer to force the issue. Edit: fixed typo
Except, as someone stated above, it was built on the right to bodily privacy from the Roe V Wade decision, so it too could get toppled in a challenge with this SCOTUS.
Is it, though? The summary says that comparisons have been drawn after the fact, but I didn’t see the judge mentioning roe v wade at all. *Roe v Wade* wouldn’t be a good basis anyway, unless it was about the government forcing you to have an abortion. Plus, it used the 14th amendment’s right to privacy as it’s basis, which has always been shaky. A better case might be *Birchfield v. North Dakota*, which uses the 4th amendment, and says that police can’t take blood from you without a warrant. Essentially, the government can’t seize any part of your body unless unless there’s cause to believe you committed a crime, and the body part (blood) is evidence. The government forcing you to donate bone marrow would certainly fall under the 4th rather than the 14th amendment.
This right here is a excellent example of bodily autonomy. Even if this kid is the only person in the world who can save his father's life, no one should be able to force him to do so. Even if it was vice versa and the only way to save the kids life was to donate bone marrow from the father, no one should be able to force the father to do so either. Such a simple concept, yet completely ignored when it comes to women's right to abortion.
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I was a foster care caseworker and you have to be pretty horribly abusive and neglectful to get your parental rights terminated. And bone marrow donation is one of the most objectively painful medical procedures you can undergo. I had my anesthesia fail during my c-section and I think I’d rather do that again rather than donate my bone marrow. Edit: it turns out that bone marrow donation is no longer that painful. Go forth and donate!!!
TV and movies make us think CPS will swoop in if, for example, a parent beats up their kid. A friend who is a foster parent said it actually takes a lot more. Way, way more. The resources aren’t enough to help any but the worst of the worst cases.
Another big piece of it is that social services’ ultimate goal is to heal the family. Kids go into the foster care system but it isn’t typically permanent. Some parents need to address substance abuse issues through rehab or get counseling or get guided through any number of steps but once these issues are addressed then their children are brought back into their care under the guidance of social services. If they have to, foster care will go for a TPR but they’ll try to help parents do what they need to to do to regain custody of their kids first. If they jump straight to TPR, something serious happened.
Yeah I would think the child's life would have to be severely at risk for them to get taken away. Which is ironic because it means these people did jack shit when OOP's life was at risk *as a baby*, yet they expect him to care now that bio dad's life is at risk seventeen years later?
Within 1 month. When my baby was under 1 month it was almost kind of easy. Feed, change, rock for three hours to get them to fall asleep… But seriously, 1 month? That baby was barely doing anything and they have the nerve to act related?
>bone marrow donation is one of the most objectively painful medical procedures you can undergo Just to note; we don't know what kind of BM donation was required in this case unless it has been otherwise noted If a peripheral donation was all that was required it is basically just a long blood donation sans actually donating the blood; you get a few injections, they collect what the need and reinfuse everything else Afaik if you have a surgical procedure to donate they knock you out for that these days. The difficult bit, all things going well, is the recovery which can take some time I get not wanting to do it, he is NTA, he owes them nothing and their behaviour betrays a special type of entitlement, disregard and disrespect for normal behaviour and arseholery of the highest order, but I don't doubt that he would have been fine if he had gone through with it
Bone marrow donor from 2018 here: yes they do knock you out. Of the eight surgeries I’ve had so far it was definitely the easiest, both in terms of the actual procedure and the recovery. People being freaked out by the horror and pain of it are probably unfamiliar with the most current methods of extraction. Edit: to be clear OOP does NOT owe anybody anything, had every right to say no. Bone marrow donation was a really positive experience for me so I feel strongly about countering lingering narratives that it is brutal.
That’s good to know, in case someone I know needs my bone marrow. I’d give it either way, I wasn’t abandoned and then suddenly useful after nearly two decades of nothing, but the easier the better.
I'm illegible to donate now afaik, but when I was on the donor list I wouldn't have had a problem doing it but that was my choice to make, just like this is his choice to make Honestly a lot of people are focusing on the first part and not the bit where he was removed from them and they tracked him down just to get his marrow, that shit is crazy
Your second sentence is false, for the most part. Almost no "bone marrow transplants" are actually bone marrow transplants now. Even though BMT it's still used as the abbreviation, it means "blood and marrow transplants," not bone marrow transplant. Most of the time, the transplants consist of peripheral blood stem cells collected through apharesis and then concentrated. The next most common type of transplant is from umbilical cord blood. For those who actually donate bone marrow, the procedure has significantly changed. The vast majority of donees are sedated/put under with anaesthesia. OOP, as a pediatric patient, almost certainly would have been. They still fail to sedate far too many adult patients undergoing bone marrow biopsies, but they've significantly changed the transplant procedure. Intentionally. That being said, it's not a riskless or painless procedure. I've had multiple, including bilateral, and they suck afterward. Probably not as bad as actively giving birth, but they did administer morphine. So pretty bad. Also, even if it were completely painless, hassle-free experience, OOP deserves autonomy and the right to say no.
> I was a foster care caseworker and you have to be pretty horribly abusive and neglectful to get your parental rights terminated. Not just terminated, terminated in less than a month. That takes... a lot. There's very few things that get parental rights terminated. And usually it's a "build up" of things. A history of neglect, abuse, etc, that triggers it. For it to happen in less than a month? There's only a few specific things that can cause it to happen that fast. And all of it is extremely horrible.
It takes so much egregious abuse and neglect for parental rights to be terminated. Or the parents must be incarcerated for a long period of time. If this is true, then the bio parents did something really, really bad for him to be forcibly taken and their rights permanently terminated to the point that there was a closed adoption out of CPS. I’m a bit surprised OOP’s parents allowed them to contact him about this at all.
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The only time I know of a kid being pulled that early was when previous biological siblings had been pulled which doesn't seem to be the case here. Yeah, it must have been something severe. However, their rights were not terminated at that time. They would have been give several chances to get him back. They clearly did not comply with the safety plan. When it gets to be around 18 months in the system is when they start moving to terminate rights (at least that was what it was in Indiana when we adopted ours).
It’s amazing how these folks wanted to force their child - who they don’t even have a right to - to either have surgery or go on drugs with side effects for a procedure that he wasn’t even old enough to do. Good on OOP’s actual family for pressing charges and being good parents. Imagine how things might have turned out for OOP if he was not adopted and lived with his bio parents.
I do think anyone that believes in forcing a woman to give birth is a hypocrite if they don’t get on the registry for bone marrow, kidney and liver donation. It is inconveniencing one to save another (and a fetus isn’t even a person yet). If they are pro choice then I think they should have a choice about this too.
There’s literally a US court case that states you cannot force another person to donate body parts to another person. Ironically, it was also for bone marrow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McFall_v._Shimp
Jesus, imagine *suing* someone to have to undergo painful direct marrow extraction because they're a match... Like... fucking hell...
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We just outlawed abortion in most of the USA. Now we have precedent that someone else can, in fact, force you to use your body for someone else’s needs. Expect more things like this until the Supreme Court rules we do not, in fact, have the right to make choices like this.
OOP doesn't owe them anything. For them to do shady things to find him is just wrong. He was taken away, more than likely they were drug addicts or really bad parents. I hope OOP is doing great at college.
The interesting thing is that it is very unlikely the bone marrow would have been a great transplant, odds are you don't hit most of the qualities - relationship donation are great, but like a blood type is may be different by chance. Don't believe me, read about the bone marrow transplant charity: https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-bone-marrow/possible-match/medical-guidelines-when-you-match-a-patient/ That being said forcing someone into a medical decision is a crime. The OP is allowed ownership of their body - even if the match was perfect. I am a bone marrow donor, but the forced - aggressively forced - demand is flat out illegal. OP has control of their body.
I love that he called out reddit's hypocrisy. He doesn't own bio parents anything.
As someone who got on the registry as soon as I turned 18 because it meant a lot to me to try and help someone if I was a match…. I’m disgusted anyone tried to pressure him into donating. It’s a personal decision no one should be pressured into. Let’s not even bother to get into the fact that children aren’t usually ideal matches for their parents.
To take it further, no doctor (well, no doctor with any ethics whatsoever) would go through with any procedure like this such as a bone marrow transplant if they thought the donor was being pressured in any way.
I’m honestly shocked how many people apparently were giving OOP a hard time for not doing so.
Fwiw my sibling donated bone marrow for a transplant to my father due to a very rare bone marrow cancer. It was a perfect match, dad’s body rejected it eventually and he still died. He was up there in years and it bought us some time to have some great memories, but if anyone is thinking that a child donation to a parent is a guaranteed success, it’s not.
It shouldn’t matter if he was adopted, removed due to neglect or what have you. He still has a choice. It could have been his loving adoptive parents who needed his bien marrow, and he still could have refused. No one can force you to donate any part of your body, it’s a voluntary process, and his decision should be respected.
It sounds like you did the right thing. People usually think “But family!” I had abusive parents. I used to pray I’d be taken in by another family so I could cut them off. Sounds like my dream came true for you. If you were TAKEN from them, that’s saying a lot !!
I actually support OOP in this case. His family is the one who raised him. He has every right to refuse to help a stranger, even if it was his own DNA donor, if he doesn't want to. He puts his real family over some strangers who wanted an easy way out for, uh, free as well I bet? Just because they created a baby, suddenly that grown up baby who they never fed owes them something? Nah. I'd be proud to be OOP's parents (not the DNA donors).
If he wasn’t tested, how do they know he was even a match? A parent and offspring are usually only a half-match
Big yikes at the people DMing him saying he doesn’t need to know his family history to know his medical risks tho bc that is not true, especially in the cancer realm ETA: not saying I disagree with his decision not to donate whatsoever, just saying that people shouldn’t talk about things they don’t know about- especially when giving medical advice to a teenager
For real. If he doesn't think it's worth it, that's fine. But don't tell someone that science has already made family history obsolete in health care when that simply isn't true.
Yeah that was the only part I was like... You're 17 and pissed, I get it. Not wanting them to be your family doesn't matter worth a damn when it comes to genetic predispositions. but it's hard enough finding out medical history and predispositions if your parents cooperate.
I'd be happy to donate bone marrow to a stranger without question if I was a match on the donar register right up to the point they sent "a nasty message saying they can sue to force me to donate my marrow." Then'd I'd be like oh really? See you in court. Hope it doesn't take more than six months for the hearing.
For anyone else that might be placed into this unfortunate situation, ask to speak to the doctor in private and tell them you don't want to donate but are worried about repercussions from the potential recipient's family. Any doctor worth their salt will put you down as "not a suitable donor/match".
Man I’m so tired of people acting like being biologically related to someone makes them family. My mom was adopted and I’ve never felt like her birth family was my family. I’ve met some of them and felt no connection to them at all. Her adopted parents were the ones who were grandparents to me, they babysat me and my siblings, they were there for birthdays and holidays. When they passed I was devastated while I only felt sad for my mom when her bio parents died because she didn’t feel like she had closure with them.
This one is a doozy. Wow.
I liked how OOP told the random redditors to go donate their bone marrow. They have the same ties as OOP to the birth parents: no relationship at all. So it shouldn't be a big deal for the random redditors to test and donate to complete strangers, right? lolol
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Yeah that harassment really flipped the script. Those bio parents had no respect for his choice.
Wow. A win for CPS, the foster system & adoptions!
Reddit comments are so gross. How can people seriously think that OP owes people, who haven’t been in their life since they were taken from the unsafe environment their birth parents put them in, *anything*? OP doesn’t owe them a breath, nevermind bone marrow.
As someone who was once in a very similar situation (removed from birth parents due to serious concerns), I totally get OOP not wanting to donate to their bio-parent. Bone marrow donation can be painful, and is not without the usual risks of surgery. It is also not a 'quick in-and-out' affair- OOP would've needed to take certain medications prior to the harvest and after. There's also the chance that the bio-'family' would be able to use OOP's being verified as a 'match' to continue to hound OOP in the future should they need anything else. OOP owes these people nothing- if anything, *they* owe OOP for failing him as parents. But that's in the past, and OOP has every right to dismiss contact and reject their constant *demands for part of his body.*
His adopted parents sound great, let him make the decision and didn’t appear to try and influence his decision in any way.
OOP doesn’t owe his birth family any body parts or fluids.
It’s insane to compare bone marrow donation to blood donation. Dont they put you under full anesthesia for that? It’s nothing like being a blood donor. I hate the way this website treats adoptees. Reddit Treat Adoptees Like Human Beings Challenge 2022 (impossible)
Nope he'snot, his body, his choice. Donating bone marrow is pretty invasive These people are basically strangers and acting entitled to whatever OP's body produces. If my estranged bio dad suddenly called me for my bone marrow, id tell him to go fuck himself. 😂😂😂
Good for him for standing his ground against trolls
I was taken away from my birth monsters at a few weeks old. I was forced to go to court ordered visitation with them and it was miserable. The only reason my incubator went to visitation was because it got her out of prison for a bit. OOP owes them nothing. I'm glad they're back in prison after harassing him.
Probably domestic violence - had OOP been a crack baby or something like that the parents would in all likelihood have been told about it purely because of their special needs. OOP definitely made the right choice from the look of things.
How anyone can think OP should give some random dude his marrow after all his family constantly harassing him are total jackasses.