HOW TO SAVE A LIFE: A DONOR'S DIARY
[Scotsman ‘07]
“I don’t know his name or where he is from. I don’t know how old he is or if he has doting parents or brothers and sisters. He may have a wife and children who love him. All I know is that this faceless, nameless stranger is dying and that I have been asked to save his life.
Days from now I am going to give him some of my bone marrow. A global search matched his tissue with mine; without my help he will probably die, they say.
I’d all but forgotten about joining the bone marrow register run by the Anthony Nolan Trust. I found my donor card faded and dog-eared at the back of my wallet after someone ‘phoned a few months ago with the news; I’d signed up in 2003 after reading about Millie Forbes, a 21-year-0ld from Aberdeenshire who had an acute form of leukaemia.
This beautiful, inspirational young woman launched “Millie’s Campaign” to enlist more donors. I was one of 3,000 or so Scots who did so. Sadly, despite finding a match of her own Millie eventually lost her fight against the disease. Were it not for Millie my patient would not have found me, or I him, so her legacy lives on.
Day One
I think I’ve got to grips with “the science bit” - no mean feat for someone who just scraped a ‘Higher’ pass in Biology twenty years ago. I feel a little easier knowing what to expect having spent the day at the London Clinic, a private hospital in the capital’s medical quarter where the procedure will take place in a couple of weeks. It felt more like a hotel being welcomed by a polite young man in a waistcoat and bowtie. My fellow ‘guests’ included Lady Something Double-Barrelled and a svelte young Russian woman who looked like she had come from Centre Court on the other side of the Thames.
I’m seen by a Consultant Haematologist who explains he won’t be ramming a dirty great needle the size of a drainpipe into my pelvic bone. I nod appreciatively. I won’t need a general anaesthetic nor will I have to stay overnight in hospital. Medical advances in the treatment of leukaemia and other blood disorders mean stem cells – the “A-Team”of blood - can be harvested from donors without the need for surgery.
Bone marrow is the sponge-like material found inside bones. Burrowed inside it live stem cells that divide and mature into the three types of blood cells: white to fight infection, red to carry oxygen and platelets which help blood to clot.
I’ll be given a series of injections over four days at home in Edinburgh. The drugs will encourage the stem cells to leave the marrow and head out into my bloodstream, which for them must be some kind of biological day-trip.
All I have to do then is lie on a bed back at the London Clinic for four or five hours, something I fully expect to cope with admirably. I’ll be hooked up to a cell separator machine: an IV in one arm will extract blood which will then be whizzed through a centrifuge and the stem cells separated and collected; what’s left will be pumped back in through an IV in my other arm. This process of PBSC (Peripheral Blood Stem Cell) collection is increasingly common. It doesn’t work in every case but around 65 per cent of transplant donations performed by the Anthony Nolan Trust now happen this way.
“If all goes to plan your immune system will become his immune system,” the Consultant says. This thought - my cells growing to fight disease inside someone else - is one that will stay with me for some time.
Day Two
I’m thinking about ‘my’ patient a lot now – and feel guilty for assuming a kind of perverse ownership of Him. I’m trying to look after myself more: eating better, drinking less. I can’t bear the thought of doing something wrong and not being able to see this through. I don’t want to let Him down.
Day Three
Margaret, my nurse from Healthcare at Home gives me the first of my four injections. I’m pretty good with needles but this was into my stomach fat (“not that I’m saying you’re fat,”Margaret says nicely) - but this was a little uncomfortable. She rattles off a list of possible side effects from the drug, all of which resemble flu-like symptoms. I feel a bit rough later in the evening. My bones ache. The drugs are taking effect, producing stem cells and pushing them into my bloodstream. I wonder if this means my bones have holes in them but Google bamboozles me with possible answers. I think about His pain, pop a couple of Paracetamol (for the Google-induced headache as much as anything else) and check for bald patches (there are none) before turning in.
Day Four
I explain to my other son William – he is five – why the lady has come to give me medicine again. I tell him that a man isn’t very well and that Daddy has some ‘special blood’ that can make Him better. He seems to understand – and only wants to know when someone is going to ask for his special blood.
Margaret says the second injection will make me feel worse and that I should take it easy. My wife – who’s also a nurse – raises her eyes, shoots Margaret a knowing, nurse-y, wife-y look and sighs that I’ll be “milking this for years”.
Within half an hour I feel like I’ve been repeatedly kicked in the back and pelvis. Much worse than Man Flu, I tell myself. But the pain doesn’t last and is dulled anyway by the thought of Him and his family. What must they be going through? My discomfort must pale in comparison. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before – but He must be thinking about me too. Two complete strangers, strangely connected. I wonder if my stem cells are going to be good enough or strong enough for Him. I hope His body doesn’t reject them (it can happen).
Day Five
Back in London for the procedure tomorrow; I’m given a final injection at the London Clinic. My father and I (he has travelled with me courtesy of the Nolan Trust) meet my brother for dinner and a final “pre-match” briefing. I have an anxious night’s sleep.
Day Six
“Is that it?”
I ask the nurse as she holds a fluid bag less than half full with an orange-coloured liquid in front of me.
“This is the good stuff,” she beams. ‘The very good stuff.”
After four hours hooked up to a piece of machinery that resembles something from the set of Dr Who when Tom Baker was manning the Tardis, my body has given up the required number of stem cells – but they amount to less fluid than you’d find in a can of Coke. It’s amazing that so little has the ability to give so much. He must receive the transplant very soon; the cells only have a lifespan of 72 hours now.
The procedure was no more than a little uncomfortable at times - hardly surprising since I was pretty much immobile for several hours with needles and tubes in both arms. I’m fed afterwards and feel absolutely fine within an hour.
Day Seven
I was fit to fly home this afternoon; I don’t feel any tangible side effects. I keep thinking about what Stephen Fry said at the Pride of Britain ceremony the other week. Presenting an award to Vicki Peters who championed the cause of those with mental illness after overcoming her own, he said that true happiness is to be found “only in the pursuit of helping others”. I haven’t faced adversity like Ms Peters, not even close. People tell me I have done a noble thing, a brave thing. Their words are kind but I feel uneasy. The journey He and I are taking together is totally reciprocal; I don’t imagine I will get the chance to do this much good ever again.
So if you’re a man or a woman aged between 18-40 – men between 18 and 25 are especially needed – please, go sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust at www.anthonynolan.org.uk. Do it today. If you’re lucky enough to get the call to donate I promise you’ll understand, really understand, where Stephen Fry was coming from.
One final thing. To Him: best of luck my friend. I’m rooting for you. Whoever you are.”
