Bone Marrow Transplant Saved Sarasota Man's Life

At 48 years old, one Sarasota man was “reborn” in a local hospital.

“I got shots just like a newborn baby,” Pinkney Davis said. “The nurses told me to look at it like it was a new birthday.”

It was 2010, and Davis had just awakened from a bone marrow transplant at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. He received the marrow through an anonymous donor. If you ask Davis, the surgery saved his life; his cancer is currently in remission.

On Thursday, Davis will travel to Capitol Hill to meet with legislators from across the nation to lobby for Be the Match Registry, the company he used to pair him with a volunteer donor based on DNA compatibility.

When Davis was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008, doctors told him his only hope for a cure was a bone marrow transplant, however, they said it could be five years before he found someone with well-suited DNA.

“It’s harder for African-Americans to find a match,” he said. “ There is a shortage of donors.”

He turned to the Be The Match Registry, and received his life-saving transplant in just five months. Now, Davis is working to spread awareness about the critical issue. Davis said he hopes to inspire congressional support of federal funding for the live-saving procedure.

“Going to lobby in front of the Senate is something new for me,” Davis said. “It’s exciting and I feel honored to have been chosen to do this. “

In 2010, Bradenton-born Randall Bibler, 29, traveled Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. to help save the life of a 49-year-old Hodgkin’s Lymphoma victim he had never met. Bibler had signed up to be a donor while serving in the U.S. Navy. Read more about his experience in the Bradenton Times article.

 “I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Bibler said of his experience.

 If you would like to learn how to become a donor visit www.bmdw.org.