Ringing in your 2 year anniversary with…a stranger? That’s survivor Adrian McDaniel and her stem cell donor Matthew Erbe. The pair had never met before, but they were a perfect match for the treatment she needed. Two years after the successful transplant, the pair finally met.
After her Hodgkin Lymphoma diagnosis in 2012, 33 year old Adrian McDaniel told ABC7, doctors began searching for alternative treatments for her aggressive cancer. She eventually began treatment for an “allogenic stem cell transplant,” which means they wanted to put stem cells from a donor into her body. The only problem was, none of her family members were a match, says the article. Her name was placed into a national registry, where Erbe was found to be a perfect match.
READ MOREErbe is a 24 year old former U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Officer, and McDaniel’s perfect match. “When I was called by the NMDP and told I was a match, I immediately said yes,” Erbe says in the video. “Being Adrian’s donor has created a bond between us that I think is hard for others to comprehend. I’m proud to have played a role in Adrian’s story and I know we will remain friends long after this.”
“It was too easy of a decision — just to say yes. Just so simple on my end,” says Erbe, “It was very easy to donate and to know I could have a potential great effect.”
Erbe met McDaniel’s husband, Cody, their three children and other family members, according to the article, and McDaniel presented Erbe with a handmade cross-stitched canvas with signatures from family and friends.
“Well what motivated me the most was probably my kids and family. I just couldn’t imagine them not having me around,” says McDaniel in the video footage. “I mean I’m with my high school sweetheart, so we still like each other and I like to hang out with him, and I just — there’s no reason to give up so I just wanted to try every fight that they wanted me to try and I’m glad I did — because you did it.”
“From the moment I walked into CTCA, I knew I was in the right place, with the right people,” McDaniel says in reference to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in north suburban Zion, Ill. in the article. “I’m so happy I was able to meet Matt today and share my deepest gratitude for him giving me a second chance to be a mom to my kids.”
Matthew Erbe signed up to donate stem cells when he entered into the marine corps. “I had just arrived at boot camp and they were throwing sheets at me and I’m just signing away at them,” he tells the video, “I didn’t realize I had signed this sheet — I kinda forgot about it. In October of 2016, they told me I’d be a potential match.”
An allogenic transplant takes stem-cells from a healthy donor that closely matches your body’s cell type and may even be related to you. This transplant is promising because these new donor stem cells not only replenish your own stem-cell stores, but can actually help kill off cancer cells as well.
However, new immune cells formed from the donor stem-cell transplant might detect your own tissues and organs as foreign and attack them instead, like they would an infection. This can have serious long-term consequences, and so allogenic transplant is currently only approved in clinical trials.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.