Breast Tissue Donor Bank

On Saturday, February the 9th, Chelle and I drove down to Indy to donate breast tissue to the Susan G Komen Tissue Bank. From their website: "The Komen Tissue Bank is the only repository in the world for normal breast tissue and matched serum, plasma and DNA. By studying normal tissue, we accelerate research for the causes and prevention of breast cancer. To more deeply understand the evolution of the disease, it is necessary to compare abnormal, cancerous tissue against normal, healthy tissue"

The site was the IU Simon Cancer Center. There were tons of volunteers leading you from station to station and answering questions. There was also someone giving out journals so people could enter their experience of the donation.



First, we had to enter personal medical information into the computer. We were identified by numbers, not names. Then we waited, where they were serving smoothies and coffee, and when it was our turn they took us back to have blood drawn. That was painful for me because the phlebotomist was not a clean stick, and it did bruise later.

We waited again and then went back to donate the tissue. They used this machine with a small vacuum tube on it. They numb you, then make a small incision, then insert the tube, which is about the size of a flattened pencil , and suck out tissue from 3 locations, then do a saline wash, give you an ice pack and send you on your way. I didn't even feel the incision or the sucking, but it did sting when she did the saline wash.

On the way out, the volunteers cheered everyone and gave a Vera Bradley bag (I don't care for Vera Bradley stuff, but the company is a huge supporter of breast cancer research) with our instructions, an extra ice pack, and a t-shirt.

Chelle getting cheered.

Chelle and I then went to lunch and off on our separate ways home. It was a nice day and we both felt so good about what we were doing! It was very empowering to think you could be helping someone and possibly saving lives in the future. Everyone was so nice and grateful and we kept getting thanked for being there. It was very cool.

I did get a small bruise two days later, but having the ice packs on the day of really helped and I was only sore the next day because Mom and I played Kinect and I was stretching and bouncing on my feet. :)  Overall, it was a great experience!