DENVER People in the state Capitols close-knit community turned out Thursday to add their names to a bone marrow donor registry in honor of former state Sen. Jim Isgar.
Isgar, a Democrat from Hesperus, was diagnosed with leukemia last year and has a bone marrow transplant scheduled for next week.
Doctors have found a marrow donor for Isgar already, and he is in a Denver hospital awaiting the transplant, according to an update on CaringBridge, a website for friends and families of patients with serious conditions.
Jim is doing well. It was great to see such a positive turnout for him, said Anna Nelson, a recruitment specialist for the Bonfils Colorado Marrow Donor Program.
Bonfils added 22 people to the registry Thursday, Nelson said.
Potential donors filled out a questionnaire about their medical histories and swabbed the inside of their mouths with Q-tips. Their information will be added to a national registry of willing donors.
Mark Cronquist of the Colorado State Conservation Board is a friend of Isgars and helped recruit people for the donor registry Thursday.
Its great that we dont have to find him a match, but there are a lot of people out there who arent as fortunate, Cronquist said.
Isgar represented Southwest Colorado in the state Senate for nearly nine years. He resigned his seat in 2009, a year early, when President Barack Obama appointed him to be the state director of the U.S. Department of Agricultures Rural Development agency.
For information on the registry, visit www.marrow.org.