By Rachel Spangler
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May 29, 2022
Facebook memories reminded me that we are approaching the 1 year anniversary of my stem cell donation. On June 1st of 2021, after five days of injections, I underwent a medical procedure to donate stem cells via a line in my chest. Those cells were then transferred into a cancer patient somewhere in Ohio. In addition to feeling like a high tech medical miracle, it was also a huge, awe inspiring experience for me personally, and I’ve spent the time since then feeling so proud and honored to have been in a position to so something so powerful. Then about two weeks ago I received a phone call that my recipient had passed away. I’m gutted. The news has ripped at me in ways I could not have anticipated. This is, in effect, the death of a stranger, a young woman in a different place, whose name I have never known. And now I will never know it. In some ways I don’t feel entitled to this level of grief. In so many ways she’d only ever existed for me as an idea. But we were not nothing to each other. I have prayed for her every day for almost a year, and now I pray for her family. I have wondered and worried over her. I have woken up in the middle of long nights and on Christmas morning thinking about her. Every time I notice the little scar on my chest where the line went into my body, I have felt her with me. Still, I did not know her. And I never will. When the transplant coordinator called, she broke the news quickly, then she said that she needed one more thing from me. She wondered if I might release my remaining stem cells to researchers. I was still a bit rocked back from the start of the conversation, and this request confused me. She explained that there were some cells left over after the transfusion, and they still belonged to me. Legally and ethically, those cells, even after they left my body, are a part of me, and no one can do anything to those extensions of my body without my releasing them. I thought about asking her if anyone had mentioned that to the Supreme Court, but I was too sad in the moment. The anger would come later, but as I’ve pondered that fact, it has helped me at least contextualize the level of grief I am feeling: A woman died with a part of me inside of her. I have tried to temper the dramatic impulse to surrender to the idea that if she died with a part of me inside her, a part of me has died as well, but I’ll admit I have gone there a time or two. What I have leaned on more frequently, though, is that despite not knowing anything other than her rough age and gender, we shared something more fundamental than names or letters. We shared stem cells, the very building blocks of what makes us who we are on a cellular level. With those cells I sent my hopes, my best impulses, my health, my love, the pieces of my blood and bones that allow me to live such a wonderful life in the hopes I could sustain her with those things. Turns out I could not. It has been two weeks of wondering if I could have done more. Fearing that my body, which I have always had a problematic relationship with, has failed me again, and this time betrayed someone else in the process. Worrying someone else paid the price of my insufficiency. Remembering loved ones I have lost to cancer, feeling that pain anew. Imagining the anguish of those who loved her as deeply as I loved the people I lost, and almost crippling empathy for the pain they are living in right now, pain I couldn’t save them from even though I tried. It’s been dark in my brain. My emotions have overwhelmed me often. Sadness ruled the first week. I burst into tears several times at inopportune moments, and cried until my face hurt. This past week anger took over. I will admit, other than a general sense of the injustice of it all, I didn’t understand where the anger came from. Then in session this week, my therapist explained that anger is a common outlet for a sense of helplessness. Helplessness is tied to our fight or flight instincts, and I am a fighter. I suppose a part of me is still trying to fight a battle that has already been lost. I am also still fighting against this slew of emotions I had no way to anticipate. I told her I was afraid of the strength of them. Since she knows me, she told me I needed to take hold of this narrative and find the through lines of what will sustain me as this story’s conclusion becomes a part of the larger story of my life. Even for a writer it was hard task. I know so very little for sure. I will think of this woman for the rest of my life, and I will never have any more closure than I have today. Despite my best effort and intentions, I will only know that she is gone, and she took a part of me with her. What is to be made of all the emotions that come with that? My therapist then asked if regret factored into the mix. I quickly said it did not, and I was surprised she even asked that. She smiled like she knew that, then gently pushed. “If one year ago someone had told you, there’s a woman in need and you will never know her. She needs the very base of your body’s building blocks, it will be a grueling process over several days that will take more out of you physically and emotionally than you had imagined, and all it will give her is 11 more months. 11 months to say what she needs to say, to hug loved ones, to try to make peace. One more Christmas, one more birthday, one more fall, and winter, and spring, but that’s all. She will be gone, and you will live on with the questions, and a connection most people will never comprehend. Would you sign up for that? The answer was yes. It is yes. If I got the same call tomorrow, the answer would be yes that day and every day after. It will always be yes. I suppose that is the through line. That’s the story. It’s part of my story, and it will be, for as long I have cells in my body…or out of it. · If your answer would be “yes” too, and you are eligible to donate, please consider registering with Be The Match , and if you aren't eligible yourself please share this information with the people in your life who might be!
