MATCH: A Charity + Vanity Event for Hematological Diseases

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Ciorwrong
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MATCH: A Charity + Vanity Event for Hematological Diseases

Post by Ciorwrong »

I am pleased to announce my small vanity quizbowl event MATCH: Making Attempts to (Help) Change Hematology. (I apologize in advance for the long post, but please read through it.)

As you may be aware, for all of 2021, I have been dealing with aplastic anemia, spent over four months in the hospital and underwent a stem cell transplant. Aplastic anemia, like other blood diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma, is primarily treated by way of a stem cell transplant (also known as a bone marrow transplant.) Without transplant, these hematological conditions can and unfortunately are often fatal. Many people unfortunately (myself included) do not have a perfectly matched sibling or a 10/10 non-related donor. This increases the odds of transplant rejection and graft versus host disease (GVHD) which can be either deadly or severe. Many people wait a long time for a suitable match or do not make it to transplant.

Charity Information:

My purpose here is twofold: 1) raise awareness to the severity of these hematological diseases and 2) encourage people in the quizbowl community to sign up to be SCT/BMT donors if they are able. Signing up to be a donor is very easy on bethematch.org . The requirements to join the bone marrow registry are to be older than 18 years of age but ideally younger than 35—ideal for the quizbowl community—not have any diseases such as HIV, no active metastasizing cancer, no history of heart disease or hepatitis, etc. Full eligibility details can be found here The short of it is that is that if you can become a donor, you really should be because you can save a life. Getting on the registry requires a cheek swab that you can mail-in or complete at a donation drive. Feel free to email or DM me on Discord if you have questions or concerns about the donation process.

In all likelihood, if you elect to go on the donor registry, you WILL NEVER be selected to donate, so the expected commitment is pretty low compared to the potential gain. If selected to donate, you can choose to give either peripheral blood or bone marrow. Giving bone marrow is a larger time commitment.

Quizbowl Event:

To encourage people to sign up for the registry, I will be writing one tossup for each person who signs up for the donor registry or donates 5$ or more to a charity supporting research into leukemia and other blood illnesses such as The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I’d prefer if people signed up for the registry, but if you can’t donate your bone marrow or just want to help, please consider a donation to a charity. Email harrisbunker AT gmail DOT com with proof and I can give you a shoutout. In your email, please indicate which packet you would like your tossup written for. If you tell your sibling, friend, etc. about the registry and they sign up, that’s great too. Let me know and I will give you and/or them a shoutout and a tossup.

As of now, I am planning to write the following packets:

1. Hard mathematics packet: will be about 50/50 applied versus pure mathematics and I will be trying to draw upon topics not commonly-covered in quizbowl. Difficulty will be around Math Monstrosity.

2. Hard economics packet: covering lots of material unfamilar to normal quizbowl that is still gettable. I will aim to mostly clue from content from upper division undergrad and first year graduate programs. Expect a little bit of extra econometrics.

3. “Kaizo” Pokemon packet: this should be the hardest packet ever written on the Pokemon franchise. The manga, the anime, fangames, etc. will be clued more heavily than assorted Poke-trivia.

4. Late 90s-early 2000s packet: will cover the period from 1997-2002 and will focus on music, pop culture, movies and some history from that era. At this point, I anticipate that pop music will be the chief focus here, but this packet should contain clues from across the trash distribution.

5. Naruto packet: self-explanatory and will cover the anime and manga franchise. There will be no spoilers from the Boruto manga and difficulty will be something like “you should convert this if you’ve seen the anime.”

I chose five topics that I really want to write, so I highly encourage you to sign up or donate. Your email should say something like “I’d like a math tossup written for me.” I will write at least 20 tossups for each packet to equal the 100 days of recovery post-transplant, but I would be very pleased if I could get a lot of people to donate and push this number closer to 150 tosssups. I will keep writing for each person who signs up until December 1, 2021 and I will read the packets for Festivus. If you would like the questions to be read at a later date or at a private reading, I request you donate at least 20 dollars to a hematological charity before I send the packets.

I hope people consider signing up for the registry or donate to hematological charity. You can make a world of a difference.

[Mods, please move this if this announcement is in the wrong place.]

EDIT: clarified that you can donate if you are over 18 but younger than 60. Be the Match prefers younger adult donors because it can take 10+ years to match before donation.
Last edited by Ciorwrong on Wed May 26, 2021 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Harris Bunker
Grosse Pointe North High School '15
Michigan State University '19
UC San Diego Economics 2019 -

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meebles127
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Re: MATCH: A Charity + Vanity Event for Hematological Diseases

Post by meebles127 »

Ciorwrong wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:11 am Charity Information:

My purpose here is twofold: 1) raise awareness to the severity of these hematological diseases and 2) encourage people in the quizbowl community to sign up to be SCT/BMT donors if they are able. Signing up to be a donor is very easy on bethematch.org . The requirements to join the bone marrow registry are to be older than 18 years of age but younger than 35—ideal for the quizbowl community—not have any diseases such as HIV, no active metastasizing cancer, no history of heart disease or hepatitis, etc. Full eligibility details can be found here The short of it is that is that if you can become a donor, you really should be because you can save a life. Getting on the registry requires a cheek swab that you can mail-in or complete at a donation drive. Feel free to email or DM me on Discord if you have questions or concerns about the donation process.
For the record, I signed up as a donor back in January and the process was incredibly simple. I requested a kit online from bethematch and it arrived in about a week. Swabbing yourself takes about 60 seconds and then you place the sticks in the envelope as directed and stick it in your mailbox. It costs nothing, it's simple, and if you do get called to donate at some point, bethematch covers your expenses related to the donation.

Sign up if you can.
Em Gunter
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