Michaela Von Sturmer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2016.
When Michaela Von Sturmer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, she never imagined it would be an Australian man, almost half her age, who would help save her life.
Von Sturmer, a primary school teacher based in Devonport, was diagnosed with the rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/cancer/">cancer in April 2016 after going to A&E with a sore stomach.
“I remember them saying to my husband, ‘Do you want to sit down?’ So, it was a shock ... we were just stunned,” she says.
“They said if you don’t have treatment, you’ve probably got six weeks [to live]. It’s fast and aggressive.”
Von Sturmer, now 61, underwent chemotherapy and had multiple blood and platelet transfusions until she could get a stem cell transplant.
“You definitely need the blood products to stay alive in that situation,” she says, and she’s grateful to all those who donated to keep her alive.
In October 2016, she had a stem cell transplant thanks to her donor – a 30-year-old Australian man who was a match.
Von Sturmer says it was an “intense” experience.
“They described it to me like a garden; there’s weeds in your blood, so they need to kill off the whole garden. They kill off your whole immune system with chemo, and then they have to transplant. So that’s what the stem cell transplant is, somebody else’s immune system.
“It’s quite high-risk. You’re really prone to infection. I couldn’t come near the school; I just had to be really careful because of any germs anywhere.
“When you’re that sick, you just want to be normal. Things like going to the mall or having a picnic with your family, you can’t do, so that was pretty difficult.”
Stem cell donors and recipients don’t typically meet, but Von Sturmer got to write her donor a card.
“But how do you thank somebody for that? I guess I would want him to know how much it meant, but also where I am and how I got back to my life basically and had a life to look forward to ... it’s just that gift of time.”
Tough as it was, Von Sturmer says she’s been “super lucky” with her recovery, though it took time to get back to normal. She says it is a two or three-year process to get well again.
“A lot of people have a lot of trouble after a transplant, and I’ve been really lucky [to have] amazing medicine, amazing community support, work, family.”
She’s grateful to have celebrated her 60th birthday last year, and to be around for her children, her grandson and her ‘bonus’ grandchildren.
“I do look at old age as a privilege now.
“When you donate [stem cells and plasma], you’re not just saving one person, you’re saving a family. Because I just think of my kids and where they are now, and I just hate to think where they would be if they had to cope with that loss.”
New Zealand Blood Service transfusion medicine specialist Dr Richard Charlewood says there are differences between whole blood and plasma donations.
“The whole blood donations, that’s the red stuff – just coming one way out of your arm into a bag, five minutes on a bed, and you’re done,” he says.
“From that, we get red cells, which carry oxygen. We get some platelets, which stop bleeding.
“The clear yellow fluid that everything floats around in is the plasma, and that is essentially salt water with proteins in it. Its job is to distribute water and minerals around the body, as well as these proteins and the cells in them.”
Plasma is donated through a process called apheresis. “The machine takes a little bit of blood, separates the plasma from the blood and returns everything that we’re not collecting. The red cells all go back to the donor, and a little bit of the plasma to keep the red cells floating, and it just does that repeatedly back and forth for 40 minutes. And what we receive out of that is a bag of just plasma.”
It’s used to treat blood loss and illnesses including cancers and immune disorders.
You can only donate whole blood every three months, due to iron loss – but you can donate plasma and platelets as often as every two weeks.
Charlewood says “we’ve fallen behind” on plasma donations around the country, and hopes that a newly opened donor centre on Constellation Drive in the North Shore will make it more accessible for people.
“We would love another 250 donors a week,” he says.
“Really what people are giving when they’re donating blood, is they’re giving time ... this is a gift of time and of their body to help somebody else, and we treat it with that respect.”
To learn more or find out if you’re eligible to donate blood or plasma, you can visit the New Zealand Blood Service website or call 0800 GIVE BLOOD.
Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. Shespecialisesin all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.