Vlad Stesin recently shared a touching story of survival on the Huffington post. The story details the journey of Vlad’s wife Mai, who survived cancer thanks to donated umbilical cord blood.

Mai was first diagnosed in January of 2013, when she was 15-weeks pregnant with her second child. She had a cough for a number of weeks which they assumed were a result of a weakened immune system, caused by pregnancy.

During a routine blood test the doctors noticed something wrong which turned out to be leukaemia. Not only was her life in danger, she would have to abort her baby so she could immediately begin chemotherapy. Mai was 32 years old at the time.

The treatment was a success and she went into remission. Unfortunately, the cancer returned 10-months later. This time around, the doctors told Mai that a bone marrow transplant would be required. Chemotherapy would not be enough to get rid of her cancer.

Bone marrow contains haematopoietic stem cells that are responsible for creating new blood cells. To beat leukaemia, a patient first has their own bone marrow destroyed by very strong chemotherapy treatments. Then, a bone marrow transplant allows the recipient to create new, healthy blood cells instead of mutated, cancerous cells.

The search began for a compatible donor. Unfortunately, Mai’s siblings weren’t compatible. They looked at the global database of 24 million bone marrow donors and still couldn’t find a donor match. It was very difficult finding a match for Mai because of her Vietnamese heritage. Vietnamese people are under-represented on the donor list

The final option was to use the stem cells from donated umbilical cord blood. Umbilical cord blood contains a wide range of blood cells including haematopoietic stem cells. Thankfully after a few months Mai found a compatible source of donated umbilical cord blood. She is in complete remission today!

Source: Donated Umbilical Cord Blood Saved My Wife’s Life

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