Hundreds of Biola students traded a few minutes of their Wednesday for the opportunity to save someone’s life by joining the National Marrow Donor Program registry. An enthusiastic team of volunteers was quickly overwhelmed as students poured out of chapel and thundered down Sutherland Way past the five tables lined up outside the cafeteria. The team ran out of swab kits within minutes and had to bring 500 more from a local office, but many students chose to wait or promised to return later to sign up.
Paige Morrison, the Be the Match drive attendant for Southern California, said she had never seen a response close to this on a college campus in the 11 years she’s worked with the organization.
The turnout shows how much Brayden Sodestrom – a four year old dying of leukemia – has captured the hearts of Biola students and propelled them into action.
Brayden’s story
Adjunct professor and pastor Drew Sodestrom shared the story of his son Brayden’s journey with cancer in chapel Monday morning, and arranged for the bone marrow drive to take place in partnership with Be the Match.
Brayden was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in April of 2009 and was in clinical remission until a dormant cell that the chemotherapy did not kill reared its head in Dec. 2010. The Sodestroms immediately began seeking a bone marrow transplant to save Brayden’s life.
It is incredibly difficult to find a match – roughly one person out of every 70,000 may be compatible according to Heather Francine, a family friend of the Sodestroms who organized the drive. Siblings have the highest probability of being a match at 25 percent, and parents come in at a mere 5 percent. For patients like Brayden, whose family members don’t match, their final hope lies in finding a donor from the NMDP registry.
A fight for life against slim odds
The possibility of Brayden finding a match from among the crowd of Biola students: “Like winning the lottery,” Francine said. “But someone always wins the lottery. God is bigger than any of this. That’s what we keep saying.”
“Slim,” Brayden’s dad admitted of the odds of success. “But God’s glory is always primary,” he added saying that the drive gives other kids a chance at life too. There are 10,000 patients looking for a transplant through the registry.
“Adding more people to the national registry gives these kids a chance at life too. Not just Brayden,” Francine said.
But Brayden is on a tight schedule. He needs the transplant in April for a chance at full recovery. The Sodestroms have confidently declared April as Cure Month and designated 2011 as their family’s Cure Year.
The Sodestrom’s aggressive campaign started at Richfield Community Church two weekends ago where 642 people signed up, and continues with bone marrow drives at Grace Evangelical Free Church on Feb. 13 and First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton on March 6. Additionally, anyone can be tested to see if they are a match by ordering a registration kit online through February 22.
Biola community seeks to help
Biola students scattered to sit on curbs and plastic chairs to fill out the three page form and swab cheek cell samples for the registry in hopes that they could help Brayden and kids like him.
Freshman psychology and ICS double major Melissa Ganzfried said she was signing up because of the impact of Drew Sodestrom’s Monday chapel message.
“I had really never heard of [the registry] before,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a way I could help and the real need for it.” Ganzfried said she would be “stoked” if selected as a donor.
Little life-changing sacrifices
“They ask for so little that could potentially be so much in people’s lives,” said Allegra Bundschuh, freshman film major from Hawaii. “There’s no reason not to do it. It takes 10 minutes max out of my life versus someone not living. It’s such a little sacrifice for me.”
