'It really felt like we struck the lottery': Police officer donates bone marrow to help sick boy

SINGAPORE: In the midst of his senior police officer training course in late 2020, Mr Tan Yu Ren received some “pretty shocking” news.

Several years had passed since he signed up to be a bone marrow donor. In a stroke of luck, he learnt that he was a perfect match for a six-year-old boy suffering from a blood disorder – the odds of a perfect match being 1 in 20,000.

“It really felt like we struck the lottery … I decided on the spot to go all out and do all I can to help the boy,” he said.

After undergoing the donation procedure, he had to wait another two years to meet the recipient. The day finally came in March – and it was even more special to Mr Tan then, who had become a father to a little boy himself.

Mr Tan was speaking to CNA after the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) – Singapore’s sole bone marrow registry – celebrated its 30th anniversary on Jul 19.

Bone marrow transplants are the preferred treatment for a wide number of blood-related diseases, including leukaemia and lymphoma.

Since BMDP was founded in 1993, it has attracted more than 120,000 donors and helped more than 800 patients successfully find a match. However, the donor dropout rate currently stands at one in three – something that BMDP’s chief executive officer Charles Loh said he wants to reduce.

Sign-ups are also entirely voluntary and registrations have significantly dropped in recent years due to the pandemic limiting face-to-face activities such as awareness talks and recruitment drives.

The sign-up age group for marrow donors in Singapore is between 18 and 49. Once registered, a donor's details will be stored in BMDP's database until the age of 60.

In July, BMDP announced that it will join hands with the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine by providing S$3.6 million (US$2.7 million) in funding for cellular therapy research and treatment.

Cellular therapy is an alternative form of treatment for patients with blood diseases, particularly for patients who are at high risk of not responding to chemotherapy or are likely to relapse.

STARTED OUT AS BLOOD DONOR

Mr Tan, who joined the Singapore Police Force in 2012 and currently holds the rank of assistant superintendent of police, was a longtime blood donor before he came across a BMDP booth in 2016 at the Woodlands Civic Centre.

Upon learning how rare it is to get a bone marrow match, he decided to register as a donor. All he had to do was get a cheek swab for his DNA and give his particulars.

He did not hear back from them until November 2020 when he was undergoing his senior police officer course. BMDP staff called him to say he was a perfect match for a child with thalassemia – a genetic blood disorder that affects a person’s ability to produce haemoglobin and healthy red blood cells.

Stem cell or bone marrow transplants are the only way to cure thalassemia. It can be managed with blood transfusions and chelation therapy, which removes excess iron from blood.

Mr Tan immediately decided to go ahead with the donation.

“After the phone call, I was very excited. I immediately called my then-fiancee and my family members to tell them of the news and my decision. They were all very supportive of my decision,” he added.

However, he soon ran into some obstacles. His police officer training meant that he could only book out on weekends, but he had to go through various medical checkups which would disrupt his course.

He was also scheduled to undergo the bone marrow harvesting procedure in February 2021, when he was going through outfield training.

“If you commit yourself to donating bone marrow … you should take responsibility to keep yourself risk-free, not to expose yourself in such an environment,” he noted.

“But that’s the thing. January was when I had to undergo this leadership course; it’s a very crucial component or otherwise, I would have to be out of the course.”

Fortunately, his trainers were kept in the loop and tried their best to minimise his risk of sustaining injuries. His supervisors at Jurong Police Division, where he was stationed at the time, were also supportive of his decision.

The procedure itself was uneventful and – contrary to popular belief – not painful at all, Mr Tan said. He was admitted to Mount Elizabeth Hospital and placed under anaesthesia during the harvesting process, with the whole process taking only an hour.

“There was very minimal pain. In fact, it was more like muscle aches,” he added.

He was given two days of medical leave and put on light duty for a week before resuming his usual training.

While he really wanted to meet the recipient, he was told that he had to wait two years due to a slim chance of a relapse. The boy could then need a second bone marrow transplant and BMDP did not want donors to feel obligated to donate again, Mr Tan said.

"I BECAME VERY EMOTIONAL"

Finally, on Mar 15, he got to meet the boy – accompanied by his parents – for the first time. Mr Tan took his wife and two-year-old son along with him as well.

The boy’s family did not wish for him to be identified or interviewed out of concern for his privacy. Thanks to the bone marrow transplant, his condition is now benign and he no longer needs to undergo regular blood transfusions.

“It was a pretty warm feeling … when I heard the parents talk about his experience,” Mr Tan recounted.

He brought along a toy model of a Singapore Police Force car for the boy, while the boy’s parents gave him a thank-you card and a custom-made cake of a police officer uniform complete with “handcuffs”.

“I became very emotional reading it and I remember crying when I read his thank-you message,” Mr Tan said.

“I remember his mother saying that all the time he was hospitalised, he wanted to play (with the toys I gave him), but he couldn’t really play of course. The gifts were the ones that made him happy.”

They currently still keep in touch and Mr Tan reaches out to the boy’s father once in a while.

When asked what he would say to those afraid of donating their bone marrow, Mr Tan pointed to “various myths” surrounding bone marrow donation, including the process being detrimental to the body.

“For those who are scared or maybe hesitate, please don’t hesitate,” he added.

“You never know when such little acts of yours are important to others, and that you are the one being able to save someone’s life.”