16 years ago a friend of mine was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. She had to do radiation and chemotherapy to kill her bad bone marrow and then, fortunately, her brother was a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant. During her illness and convalescence, whenever anyone would ask her if there was anything they could do, she would ask them to sign up for the National Marrow Donor Registry.
Signing up isn't free and you could save a life, which is one way to define a hero, I suppose.
A few years after I signed up I got a call to go in for more extensive tissue typing because I might have been a match for someone. I went in for the test, but, unfortunately, I was not the best match they could find. I say unfortunately because I wanted to go the distance.
It isn't free and you could save a life. You can be a hero.
http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/index.html