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'Being The Match' Could Save a Life

DENVER (CBS4) Bonfils Blood Center is hosting a bone marrow registry sign-up at the Give LIVE Benefit Concert on Friday, March 27th.

The concert raises about  $150,000 for Bonfils. They use that money to help with operating expenses, including processing blood donations, holding blood drives out in the community, and shipping blood to nearly 100 healthcare facilities across the state. Bonfils needs to collect approximately 3,000 blood donations to meet the weekly needs of Colorado.

LINK: Bonfils Blood Center

This year, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness is headlining the Give LIVE Concert.  The indie-pop singer has a personal connection to bone marrow donation. When McMahon was 22, he was diagnosed with leukemia. During the course of his treatment, McMahon got a stem cell donation from his sister that saved his life. That experience became the basis of this current album, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness.

David
David Collinson talks with Rusty Lannin via Skype. (Credit: CBS)

David Collinson is all too familiar with the benefits of bone marrow donation. He was diagnosed with late stage leukemia in 2004. Doctors had told him he had 6 months to live.

"I was very ill and I was in desperate need of a transplant," Collinson told CBS4.

None of his family members were a match, so doctors turned to the Be The Match registry. There they were able to find a perfect match in Rusty Lannin, of Houston Texas.

LINK: Be The Match Bone Marrow Registry

"It was unbelievable. The joy of hearing I'd found a match. It gave us hope," Collinson said.

"I was surprised, and then I had to learn about it and what I had to do and what it entailed for me," Lannin said of being tapped to make a bone marrow donation.

It entailed a surgery in which doctors inserted needs into his hips and extracted bone marrow. Some bone marrow donors are able to give through a blood donation process, but that wasn't the case for Lannin.

"The medical people had warned me about how painful it was going to be. Falling on your butt skiing all day is a lot worse than that ever could be. It was really easy, " Lannin said.

Lannin describes the procedure as a simple shot in the arm, and when he woke up a few hours later he was slightly sore, but he walked out of the hospital that same day. That one surgery saved David Collinson's life.

"He truly gave me the gift of time to spend with my family and to be  father and to be a husband. And that's a gift that can never be repaid," Collinson said.

Collinson and Lannin met about a year after the donation. They've become close friends and have visited each other's homes several times over the last ten years.

"They are truly blood brothers, in every sense of the word," said Sandy Collinson, David's wife.

"Still after 10 years, I reflect every day. Every day, I cannot believe I'm here. Every day, I truly believe is a gift that has been given to me from my good friend Rusty.

A gift that no amount of money could pay for, a simple gesture of signing up for the bone marrow registry.

Bonfils Blood Center will be signing up people for the Be The Match registry at the Give LIVE Concert. The concert is Friday, March 27th at 7:30 at the Paramount Theatre. Tickets are available through Altitude Tickets.

LINK:Give LIVE Benefit Concert

Libby Smith is a Special Projects Producer at CBS4. If you have a story you'd like to tell CBS4 about, call 303-863-TIPS (8477) or visit the News Tips section.

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