[aristus]

I was part of a study of bone marrow donors. Basically a short phone call every year. The questions were solely about physical effects, but each time I tried to explain psychological effects similar to PTSD. I have heard similar stories from other donors. The grad students on the phone were sympathetic but as far as I can tell there was no way to push that information up the chain. They had a checklist and that was it.

[chankstein38]

Sorry if this is insensitive but I'm curious. Feel free not to answer, what is the PTSD from? I have never had any exposure to bone marrow donation. Is it that you donated and it was painful and/or the whole experience was frightening?

[aristus]

Note: This applies only to traditional "harvest" surgery and not the new aphereisis method used today.

The surgery itself wasn't great but I was at 80% after a month and 100% after three. No long term effects.

Here's the thing: at every point in the process, interviews, blood tests, health checks, etc, at every point the entire process is explained very carefully and you are told at every point that it is voluntary and you can back out right up the the minute of surgery.

Except. The recipient has their marrow irradiated and killed a week before you show up to donate. So you better make that appointment. Of course all voluntary. It was a real mindfuck of a whipsaw of emotions going in, and then months of zero information after.

It's hard to explain the feeling of holding another anonymous kid's life in your hands. I'd cry for a week every year around that time, and then the survey phone call.

The story worked out for us. I got to meet him a couple years later and was just invited to his wedding.

[noman-land]

Thanks for sharing your story.

[giraffe_lady]

It sounds like they have a donation-specific experience around it.

But in general, non-emergency surgery is a very common cause of ptsd. It has a lot of the "checkboxes" of pain plus knowledge of powerlessness and lack of agency in the face of impending suffering. The psychoactive effects anaesthesia may play a part too; I've never read anything too concrete about it but some of the sufferers I've known believe that strongly.

In my years in and out of ptsd support groups I have almost always known someone who ended up there from a scheduled, "routine" surgery. A lot of fairly common scenarios can cause it. About half the people I see in there are from car accidents, the rest a pretty even split between sexual assault and childhood abuse. Only ever come across a handful of the "typical" combat veteran type folks, though I understand they mostly have their own networks.