FULTON, Ill. — KT3 fitness held a bone marrow registry “Be the Match” on Saturday. The owner of the fitness center, Kyle Huebner said his own experience with bone marrow donation inspired the registry.
Huebner registered as a bone marrow donor back in 2015, and received a call about a potential match back in December.
On January 18th, Huebner successfully donated his bone marrow to a complete stranger.
“The patient was 32 and she had leukemia, and I'll get to meet her in a year if we both consent, so everything goes well, so I'm excited about that.”
Bone marrow donations are known as a painful experience, but there is more than one way to donate.
“Most people when they think of that they think of like getting it, getting taken from their hip, which seems painful and seems scary," employee, Sarah Collins said. “That only happens 23% of the time. 77% of the time, and a way that Kyle actually donated, is called P-B-S-C, and that is taken from the blood. you get a shot of in advance that moves your bone marrow into your blood, and then you were able to take that out of your blood in a blood donation.”
Huebner, who has a self-confessed needle phobia, said the experience was nothing out of the ordinary.
“The whole process was so smooth and it was painless really I mean I was sore for a couple of days of outside of that I didn't have any pain, it wasn't invasive. It was just getting your blood drawn.”
Those who registered swabbed their cheek with a sampling kit to send off for potential matches.
For more information about future bone marrow donations can visit KT3’s website here.