COLUMBIA, 12/10/09 (Beat Byte) -- Just in time for the holidays comes the touching story of a registered nurse at Columbia's Boone Hospital Center who saved the life of a young leukemia patient with a very personal gift: Her own bone marrow.
After a relapse, two rounds of chemotherapy, and an unusually hard-to-treat form of the disease, Anna Robinson wasn't a likely candidate for a successful marrow transplant. But now, two years later, Robinson is in full remission thanks to Katie Quinn, an MU-Sinclair nursing school graduate who, ironically, was turned away from a blood drive and decided to donate bone marrow instead.At the time, Quinn didn't know Robinson -- donor/recipient identities are kept confidential. The story of how they eventually met is in this month's Self Magazine:"Katie Quinn was feeling dejected as she headed out of the annual Greek Week blood drive at the University of Missouri at Columbia in the spring of 2007. She had been all set to represent her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, by giving a pint. But a finger prick revealed that her iron was too low to qualify. The red-haired 20-year-old nursing student was genuinely disappointed as she slung her book bag over her shoulder and started off to class. So when she heard a young woman at a booth call out, 'Hi, would you like to sign up?' she stopped walking."'Sure. What is it?' asked Quinn, athletic and vivacious, with smiling brown eyes. She filled out a form to become a bone marrow donor."
Tests determined that Quinn was a perfect 1 in 10 billion match for Robinson, a Smith College student with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.From Self Magazine: "Quinn listened in shock as she was briefed about 'her' patient: a desperately ill 22-year-old woman in Seattle, 'This is an urgent patient,' Quinn was told; she'd need to decide quickly whether she was willing to donate bone marrow."Quinn, a 2005 Chillicothe, Mo. High School graduate, donated her marrow, a harrowing experience in itself. Self Magazine reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely captured a final, touching moment between the two women:"Anna Robinson presented Katie Quinn with a black velvet box wrapped in white ribbon. 'I have your [bone marrow] cells to remember you by,' she said. 'I wanted to give you something to remember me by.' She looked on bashfully as Quinn pulled off the ribbon and opened the box.Inside was a round silver pendant bearing an inscription that summed up everything she wanted to say: The things that matter the most in the world can never be held in our hand."
SELF MAGAZINE: The Stranger Who Saved MeAnna Robinson beat back cancer with the help of an anonymous bone marrow donation. Then she began to wonder: Who was the woman who gifted her with a second chance?RELATED:
Sidebar
Mobile Menu
The Columbia Heart Beat
COLUMBIA, MISSOURI'S ALL-DIGITAL, ALTERNATIVE NEWS SOURCE
31
Sat, Jun