Have you ever wondered why you are here? What your purpose is? Can you imagine being given the opportunity to potentially save someone's life?
On Dec. 30, 1996, I started working for Vanderbilt's Bone Marrow Transplant Program. I knew nothing about bone marrow transplant, but I was very eager to learn. I knew it meant helping people with potentially fatal diseases, and that was enough for me to know I would love the job.
Soon after my training began, I learned I would be working with a network called the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). The network consists of transplant centers, donor centers and collection centers from all around the world. This makes it possible for a patient in the United States to be transplanted using a donor from as far away as London, England, but neither the patient nor the donor has to leave the country. I was tasked with helping these donors and potential recipients connect from around the globe.
It was early in my new role that I learned about the ever-increasing need for more volunteer donors on the NMDP registry. I was very intrigued at the thought of being a donor. The one question that kept racing through my head was how do I sign up?
About a decade later, I learned the answer to my burning question and got my chance at saving a life. It had been years since I was "typed" and entered in the National Marrow Donor Program database, and not a day went by that I wondered when my time would come. I just wanted to be sure I didn't miss the opportunity to donate.
I finally got that call on April 19, 2000. I got word that I had potentially matched with a recipient, a baby girl, not quite a year old, who had leukemia and who was in desperate need of a stem cell transplant. There is no way to put into words how excited I was to be receiving that call. Was this precious baby going to be my recipient?
It was not to be. I was not a match to this baby. But I wasn't ready to give up. The years passed and although many times I wondered if a second chance to be an unrelated donor would arise, I knew my recipient was out there.
May 26, 2005, started out as just another day, but quickly there was a life-changing turn in my quest to be a donor. In the early afternoon hours, I received a request for more testing for another potential recipient. I knew this might be it. All I could do was wait. I am not a patient person, and I had been waiting to give the gift of life for seven years.
My phone finally rang on July 14, 2005, at 6:30 p.m. I was asked to undergo the more extensive testing required of donors to determine if they are a suitable match. I was ready. I knew barring any unforeseen abnormalities in my tests, this was it. Per NMDP guidelines, all I could be told about my recipient was he was a 61-year-old man with refractory acute myelogenous leukemia. I knew, due to his age, he would have to undergo a reduced intensity transplant. For a man of his age, with his type of disease and that type of planned transplant, the outcome wasn't too promising.
All of my testing went very well and things looked very promising. I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief when a date was set. I would become a donor on August 4, 2005. In preparation for my stem cell donation, I had to undergo five consecutive days of injections. The injections would mobilize (or multiply) my blood stem cells, so there would be an adequate number of cells for transplant to my recipient. I prayed hard and often that the injections would be successful and there would be more than enough cells to cure this man of his potentially fatal disease.
The process is fairly simple and relatively painless. The injections didn't hurt, but I did take a little Tylenol to help the minor aches and pains. I know my minor aches were nothing compared with the pain that the man that I was to be a donor for and his family had endured.
My stem cell collection was set for the early morning on Aug. 4, 2005. The day I had hoped and dreamed about had finally arrived. Here is how stem cell donation works: Your blood is removed through an IV line in one arm, just like a blood test. A special machine sorts out the life-saving stem cells and funnels them into a bag to be sent to the recipient. Then your blood, minus the stem cells taken out for transplant, is sent back into your body through an IV in the other arm. It felt just like getting a blood test, except in this case, you have to lie very still for several hours while the entire process takes place.
The transplant was behind us and I now had a new name for the man that until now I referred to as my recipient. I called him my "blood brother," and his wife became my "blood sister-in-law." NMDP guidelines dictated that we were not permitted to have direct correspondence for one year. I didn't even know if they shared the desire to have direct contact with me, so I would have to wait and see.
Fifteen months after I donated stem cells for my blood brother, my husband and I traveled to Minneapolis, Minn., where I met Jim Caygle and his wonderful wife, Pat. Our first meeting was at the NMDP council meeting, in front of approximately 1,200 people. I never dreamed that our meeting would be that exciting. I could have met Jim on a dirt road in the backwoods of Alabama, with not a single soul around but us, and I would have been just as excited. I did not need 1,200 people cheering for us, I only cared to meet him, and see for myself that my cells had done their job.
Since our meeting, we have kept in very close contact. Not more than a few days go by before Pat is calling with either an update on Jim or just to check in and see how we are doing. The Caygle family and the McVay family share something that will always make us feel like family, something we cannot quite explain, something that is in the blood.
Meet Linda McVay
Nashville, TN
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