Patient donor stories

Francesca Barone Schmitthammer is laughing. It is hard imagining this bubbly American woman in sad moments. Moments in which she frowned. No comparison to today, today she beams with happiness. Her sight catches those of the two men standing next to her – her husband Fred and the 34-year-old truck driver from Castrop-Rauxel: Pierre Kückelmann who saved Fred’s live seven years ago by donating stem cells. Now they met at the Stefan-Morsch-Foundation, Germany’s first donor registry – a meeting that shall also encourage others, that shall give hope. Flashback to 2010: The Schmitthammers live in the USA. Fred is a…

My father used to be in good health without any medical issues. One day we noticed sudden changes on our father’s health. He looked fatigue and exhausted and there was a shocking drop of his weight. We insisted to take him to the hospital during one of our family gatherings to do a full checkup on him to assure our self that he was fine. After several laboratory tests were taken, the physician informed us that our father has blood cancer. This was shockingly terrible news for all of us. My father had faith and he accepted the news, he…

In July 2015, my family was so happy that we found to buy new, bigger flat that suits us all. Our children, Sofija 13 and Jovan 11 have grown up and we needed more space. There were only few formalities left to be finalized with the bank for the mortgage and we were free to go for summer vacation next week. Among those formalities to be done was a medical check, related to expansion of my life insurance policy. It was never a problem, so it came as a surprise when some blood test results were not ideal and additional…

Mario and Dorothy – the story of a very special family photo Stem cell donation saves lives – The life of Dorothy Powrie and her family in Scotland can live a normal life because of the donation of a German man from Gescher. It looks just like a normal family photo. A couple surrounded by children and grandchildren – everyone is smiling happily. Mario Döring is one of these people. He stands in the back – probably deliberately. However, he is the man that made this photo possible. The 38 year old donated stem cells 5 years ago, without even…

The story of Nastya Zerova, a girl from the little town of Gubakh in Perm Krai, Russia, can be called nothing but amazing. All manner of remarkable things happened to Nastya and her mother Vera thanks to the acute myeloblastic leukaemia Nastya was diagnosed with in 2008. Nastya and Vera had originally gone to the Perm regional hospital, but even after their time there, the illness refused to give up. In 2012, Nastya suffered a relapse. That was when they went to Moscow. But their most amazing journey was still to come—four years later they found themselves in Birkenfeld in…

This is the remarkable story of the Sorokin family from the historic village of Bogolyubovo in Vladimir Oblast. Once, Olga and Alexei only dreamt of having a single child, but since then they’ve found themselves with five: 19-year-old Anya, 13-year-old Sasha and Georgi, 12-year-old Masha and 10-year-old Sonya. The moment everything changed for them was when one day Anya was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia, one of the worst bone marrow diseases. What do you remember about your illness and its treatment? Anya: I don’t remember anything bad about that time in my life. For instance, I was asleep while I was…

Hello, I’m Diana Anzola Luchessi a 31-year old Venezuelan living in Dominican Republic for the last 5 years. On December 2017, my husband and I decided to get a better insurance as we were celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary and decided I was time for expanding our family. That Christmas we went to Colombia, there is when I started to feel tired. At first I thought it was because of the trip (moving the suitcases, walking through the city, etc.) but then I started to feel worse and I felt I got an UTI so I took some medicine to…

I have been asked to write my experience as bone marrow donor. Here it is. First of all it is necessary to introduce myself. My name is… I am joking, according to Italian law, bone marrow donors must remain anonymous and I strongly believe in the rightness of this rule, but my story’s peculiarity is not in my name but in my job; from 01.01.2008 I’m working at the Italian Bone Marrow Donor Registry. When I started working at IBMDR I knew very little about marrow donation, but almost immediately I enroll myself as a potential volunteer donor. I’ll be…

Is your family worried about your health and are they against you becoming a donor? There is really no need to worry. This story from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Stem Cell Center discusses the event that a grandmother who was strongly against her grandson donating at first, and after more explanation becomes a full supporter.

Elizabeth and Kathryn Girtler are healthy 9-year-old twin girls. But that wasn’t always the case. Friday night, at a gala event for Be The Match, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization that matches patients with bone marrow and umbilical cord blood transplants, the Girtler girls finally met the man who changed and saved their lives: Ingo Gruda. The girls – the whole family – said thank you. “Saying thank you isn’t enough,” said Michelle Girtler, the girls’ mother. “It’s like a cliché. We said, ‘You are forever our hero.’” For his part, Girtler said, Gruda told the girls they were now a…

DKMS donor Luis Miranda and DKMS patient and survivor Ezra Miller meet for the first time. In August 2015 Ezra was diagnosed with Leukemia – a day Ezra’s mother will never forget. Ezra needed a bone marrow transplant to survive. After losing his sister in an accident, Luis knew immediately he would say yes when DKMS called him as a bone marrow donor. Luis recalled, “when an opportunity comes to do something for someone that you can do, it is amazing.” Luis, who is originally from Guatemala, said his upbringing in an undocumented immigrant household had a lot to do…

Thankfully, there are wonderful and unique moments in life. One of them is the annual donor – recipient meeting held in Prague the Municipal House. This year it was a story of 28-year-old patient Jakub and 29-year-old donor Nikola. Jakub I am a violinist, the cruel disease has interrupted the innocent years of my youth and my career. Thanks to my life saviour – stem cell donor – I can continue with my life right there where it had been interrupted. Since childhood I have played the violin, my grandfather who was a professional master and played for years with…

Local Las Vegas resident Ron Gross is alive today because of one selfless donor from Poland. In December 2013, Ron was told by his oncologist that he desperately needed a bone marrow transplant–and quickly—in order to survive. He had been diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder that disrupts the production of blood cells. Luckily, Ron found a match on the Be The Match Registry, received his transplant, and began returning back to a normal, healthy life thanks to this amazing young woman – his donor. Over time, Ron found out more about her – she was an artist in her…

Life presented us with two special and beloved children, Maria Paula and Samuel. However, from an early age they were fighting for life. There were many hospital admissions until we reached a definitive diagnosis of Rare Congenital Immunodeficiency. Since then we have discovered that the only way to keep them alive would be a bone marrow transplantation, so we began the search for donors, hoping for the best and in the confidence that God would help us. It was from REDOME that we received the two good news that there were donors for our children, a Brazilian for Maria Paula…

Giving life is a divine act, and that was how Kiran Kumar Karamchedu described the act of blood stem cell donation by Shabas T.S. that gave his daughter Manasvi a new lease of life. In an emotional get-together of the donor and the recipient here on Thursday, Shabas, Kiran Kumar, Manasvi, and Manasvi’s mother Kamala could not hold back their tears as they hugged each other. At the meeting organised by Datri, the blood stem cell donor registry, 23-year-old engineering graduate Shabas, choking with emotion, said he was happy and proud to see the little girl and her family. For…

My brother was diagnosed with Acute Myloid Leukemia around the age of five in 1994, as this type of cancer requires a bone marrow transplant from a relative with the exact type of DNA as my brother my family underwent testing to find a donor, Joshua being one of only three siblings the outlook wasn’t very good. You can have ten siblings and not one be a match but miraculously I was an exact donor. Being only three and at the time of the operation anaesthetic of the time alone was a huge danger to such a young child. Luckily…

In March this year, bone marrow donor Max and patient Lawrence met for the first ever time! When Lawrence Trace, 59, from Wales was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma in 2005, his only hope was a bone marrow transplant. There was only one suitable match on the worldwide register – 21 year old Max Jeckeln from Raunheim, Germany. Max donated his stem cells at a hospital in Germany, which were delivered to the University Hospital of Wales the next day, and within hours Lawrence received his transplant. The pair built up a close friendship over letters, emails and phone, and the…

Gift of Life held the Steps for Life 5K Run and Walk of Boston on Sunday, April 30. For two special people among the nearly 700 people arriving at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, this was one of the most exciting days of their lives – they were about to meet for the first time, and one of them had saved the other’s life. How do you save someone you’ve never even met? You cure that stranger’s life-threatening cancer by sharing your peripheral blood stem cells or bone marrow.   After waiting for nearly two years since the transplant took place,…

Petrozavodsk is a small town at Lake Onega, the second largest lake in Europe. Here is situated one of the first register of unrelated donors of hematopoietic stem cells in Russia– Karelian department. The effectiveness of the register is the great merit of volunteers. There is one special person among all volunteers. Her name is Natasha Kovaleva. This fragile young woman has fought off leukemia thanks to the Karelian register of unrelated donors of hematopoietic stem cells and now helps others. For the first time the disease crippled Natasha when she was 21. It all started with the common cold,…

When Robert Skirboll went to his doctor in 2009, he complained about problems with ongoing fatigue. After a few blood tests, a specialist told him he had a chronic blood condition that would have to be treated with regular blood transfusions. Feeling that he should get a second opinion, he sought out the Wake Forest University Hospital, where he learned that myelodysplastic disorder is actually a form of cancer, and he needed immediate chemotherapy. After a short remission his condition continued to deteriorate, and doctors recommended a blood stem cell transplant in the hopes of replacing his bone marrow and…

Erik Gracia Erik Gracia was just two years old when diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood. After undergoing months of intense chemotherapy, he went into remission but relapsed in 2012 at the age of nine. This time Erik required a stem cell transplant to save his life and without a match in his family, Erik would have to rely on the generosity of unrelated donor. 3000 kilometres away 20-year old Texas college student Brent Lewelling received a phone call telling him that that a little boy in Canada needed his help – he was a…

Mackenzie Curran In 2013, at the age of 16, Mackenzie Curran was diagnosed with myelodyplastic syndrome, a  cancer that prevents the bone marrow from producing enough healthy blood cells.  To survive, Mackenzie needed to find an unrelated stem cell donor. An honour student and elite athlete, Mackenzie was  a vibrant and active teenager with a world of opportunity ahead of her.  Her family was reeling from the news of MacKenzie’s disease, and hopeful that a match would be found through Canada’s OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network. Fortunately, in November of the same year, Mackenzie’s family learned a donor in…

Steven Larigakis Dr. Steven Larigakis was a well-established family physician practicing in British Columbia, Canada. He was an avid cyclist and swimmer, and loved spending time with family.  In May of 2011 he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive T-cell lymphoma. After, three rounds of chemotherapy, his kidneys and liver were failing and his condition was nearing end stage. A stem cell transplant was his only hope. A match was found through Canadian Blood Services’ OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network and in September 2011, Dr. Larigakis received the stem cell transplant that saved his life. Knowing that your…

Muhannad Pediatric Patient from (KSA) and (German Donor) Muhannad was diagnosed with Fanconi Anemia, which required regular transfusions of platelets and red blood cells, and his needs to transfusions increased to almost weekly. There were no matched donor in the family nor extend family. Fortunately, he reached out the Saudi Stem Cell Donor Registry (SSCDR) and found a matched donor from the German Registry. Donor has accepted to donate stem cell and helped Muhanned with stem cell infusion until he recovered. When one person caring about another this represents life’s greatest value, stem cell donors are the ultimate caregivers heroes….