This web page is reserved for people with first-hand experience receiving a stem cell transplant. If you’re looking for someone to describe what it’s like to receive a transplant – you’ve come to the right palce.
We’ve interviewed more than two dozen transplant recipients since beginning this project in 2009. And while we’re grateful to them all for freely sharing their stories, we never have the time to allow them to describe their experience in depth. So we have carved out this space for those experiences to be shared.
We started by bringing together three of our adult stem cell transplant Alumni:
Below you’ll find their answers to a series of questions. They allowed us to listen to their discussions on a number of topics and experiences. We hope you’ll be encouraged to share your stories and we’ll update this page regularly.
“You had to be sick enough to qualify, but healthy enough to survive.”
Listen to these three stories of getting accepted into clinical trials.
“They harvested my stem cells. And I don’t know how y’all felt when I still got a scar right here on my arm where they put it. You got one too.”
“Yeah. The good things that came out of getting transplant for me is I got to finish school. I’m a nurse now. And really, my life turned around completely. I just feel 100% better. I’m not on any medications or anything. I just feel like I’m moving forward in life instead of just being stuck in pain.”
I first learned about adult stem cell transplants when I was really, really sick. And my doctor told me later, I didn’t know this obviously at the time, but he told me, “Jackie, your body was trying to die.”
Were you guys allowed to go home after your hospital stay, back to where you are?
You know, there’s a lot of nights you lay in the hospital and you’re just wondering, if you’re ever going home again.
How long did you have to stop working while you were sick? And during the transplant, did you stop working?
“I told myself, I said, “Look this is not sampling pies and kissing babies. This is fighting for your life. That’s what this is. And I’m going to fight. I don’t care until my last breath. I’m going to fight.”