In January 2023, Jill Poarch was saved by a stranger living hundreds of miles away. In June, she finally got to meet and thank him.
Poarch, of Middleton, received a bone marrow transplant to treat her T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This rare and aggressive form of leukemia occurs when too many abnormal T-cells, a form of white blood cell, are found in the body and weaken the immune system. While the bone marrow donation process is typically anonymous, Poarch was able to meet her donor, Garrett Taylor, during UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center’s first annual Blood Marrow Transplant Celebration of Life.
“It was a good experience. I was happy to be a part of it,” Taylor said of the reunion and meeting Poarch. “I'm going to remember it for the rest of my life, and I'm glad that my donation went to such a nice, deserving person as Jill.”
Diagnosis
During the summer of 2022, Poarch first noticed that she had been feeling “off.” The 68-year-old retired emergency department nurse didn’t have the energy she used to, her lymph nodes were swollen, and she had a persistent pain in her left side. She also developed a rash, and her toes were slightly purple.
“One day, I just sort of crashed,” she said of her symptoms.
In September 2022, she was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Poarch said even with her own extensive medical experience, it was overwhelming to get her diagnosis and talk about treatment options.
“Everything is so specialized,” she said. “I was an emergency room nurse, a forensic nurse. I know what scans are, what blood counts should be, what certain procedures are, but cancer is a different field.
Dr. Matthew Brunner, her hematologist at Carbone Cancer Center, determined a bone marrow transplant was the best treatment option. For this procedure, Poarch would need a donor with closely-matched human leukocyte antigens, or proteins the body’s immune system uses to recognize good cells that belong in the body versus those that are a potential threat. Having a good match helps the donor cells adapt to the recipient’s body and mitigate complications.
Life-saving donation
Taylor, 30, a pharmacist from Phoenix, Ariz., first registered to be a bone marrow donor while he was in pharmacy school. He understood well the impact a donor can have on someone’s life: a cousin of his had two double-lung transplants for chronic health issues, and his father and grandfather were regular blood donors.
“I think it’s the right thing to do to help someone if you hold the key to their treatment, and I love that science and medicine give us the ability to do these things,” he says.
Taylor received a call in October 2022 that he was a very good match for a patient in need of a bone marrow transplant, and he was excited to help. He likened the actual donation process to a longer version of a normal blood drive.
“It is relatively such a simple process to donate, and it can have such a life-changing effect for someone in need,” he says. “It is amazing that modern medicine gives us this ability that it should not be wasted.”
At the time, he didn’t know any details about the patient he was going to help, but he was happy to do his part to help a stranger in need.
To prepare for her transplant, Poarch went through intensive chemotherapy and total body irradiation to rid her body of cancerous cells. The donor stem cells would then be used to reprogram her immune system to create healthy cells.
She received the transplant in January 2023. Her only complication was a brief bout with graft versus host disease, where the donated T-cells began attacking her own cells. Once that was treated, Poarch has been gaining her strength back and has no evidence of her cancer. While she still has some lingering fatigue and neuropathy, she’s grateful to be alive. She was also happy to be able to thank Taylor personally.
“If it wasn’t for his generosity, doing what he did, I wouldn’t be here,” Poarch said of Taylor. “It seems to be a great match, and I’ve done pretty well.”
