Mexican Cancer Survivor Says Donating Bone Marrow Is “Scary,” But Not Painful Agencia EFE
go to original September 1, 2017

Mexican opera singer Barbara Padilla, a cancer survivor who worries that misinformation makes many people hesitant to donate blood or tissue, says that in the case of bone marrow, donors face only a simple, non-surgical procedure.

The Guadalajara-born Padilla, a 2009 finalist on the US television show “America’s Got Talent,” suffered with bone-marrow cancer for more than five years, but emerged with her soprano voice intact and the lesson that saving someone’s life can be easy.

“When you learn that the four hours you donated saved a person’s life, you believe that your life is worth it,” she told EFE in an interview.

Padilla understands that the idea of donating bone marrow “is very scary” as a result of widely held misconceptions about the process.

The truth, she says, is that the procedure is as painless as giving blood, as bone-marrow stem cells are drawn through a syringe.

“You won’t ever miss those stem cells,” she said.

Padilla, 43, knows whereof she speaks, having provided the bone marrow tissue required to defeat her own cancer.

Read the rest at La Oferta

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