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How to save a life, one stem cell donation at a timeHow to save a life, one stem cell donation at a time

My Generation: My son was a match for a young woman in need of lifesaving stem cells. Here’s what we learned — and what you can do to get on the registry, too.

Holly Spangler, Prairie Farmer Editor, Farm Progress Executive Editor

January 31, 2025

12 Slides
Prairie Farmer Editor Holly Spangler with her son, Nathan

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At a Glance

  • Holly Spangler’s son, Nathan, was identified as a stem cell match and donated for a woman with a rare autoimmune disorder.
  • Every three to four minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer, like leukemia.
  • The first stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor occurred in 1979, in the daughter of a Colorado veterinarian.

We sat in a medical cubicle together, my 20-year-old son and me. The machine next to him hummed and shook and pumped and whirred. A tangle of clear tubing showed blood moving, first away from his left arm, then into the machine, then back into his right hand.

Nathan was donating stem cells for a young woman he’s never met. But his cells matched hers. And she needed them to live.

So there we were, in Florida, pulling stem cells from his body and depositing them into a bag for a 24-year-old woman from an undisclosed location with a rare autoimmune disease. How rare? It didn’t even show up on a drop-down menu of possible choices.

It all happened because about 15 months ago, Nathan joined the registry at NMDP, formerly known as the National Marrow Donor Program and Be the Match. Nathan and a bunch of his buddies spend time around campus getting students to join the registry, because FarmHouse Fraternity at the University of Illinois supports NMDP. It’s a quick cheek swab, some contact information, and they roll on.

Maybe you get called. Maybe not. Who knows?

Three months ago, Nathan was about to climb in a tractor and work down ground when he got an email, a text and a call, all in rapid succession. He spent the better part of the next three hours in a tractor and on the phone with an NMDP representative.

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He didn’t think twice. He said he’d donate.

That call led to blood work to confirm the match, followed by a physical exam and more blood work.

“I’ve never seen that many vials of blood,” he told us, laughing.

After a series of conversations, NMDP had the two of us booked on late-January flights to West Palm Beach, Fla., with a couple of nights in a beachfront hotel and a full day of stem cell collection. Because the young woman needed as many as they could possibly get from Nathan.

“Prepare for six to eight hours of collection,” they told him.

Every day for five days before the donation, Nathan went in for a series of three shots of a drug called filgrastim to boost his stem cell production. Possible side effects included bone pain, nausea, exhaustion and insomnia, and in true Spangler fashion, he got all four. We’re great at side effects.

Back in the cubicle

Paul the Best Nurse took care of Nathan. Blood left his body via an intravenous needle in his left arm. Then it went into a machine with a big name that I can’t remember, but Paul said it was basically a centrifuge. That machine spun out the blood, separating stem cells from platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells. The stem cells went into a bag, filling slowly with pinkish-red liquid.

The stem-cell-less blood circulated back through clear tubing, around a warming cylinder that brought it back to body temperature, and then back into Nathan’s body through another intravenous needle in his right hand.

That warming process was no joke. Nathan spiked a fever at one point, and they turned the warmer off to see if that would bring his temperature down. It did, but he was freezing within minutes, literally from the inside out. So they turned the warmer back up and gave him some Tylenol. That worked better.

Six hours later, they had enough stem cells. And when it was over, Nathan was exhausted and achy, and managed to come down with a respiratory virus along the way. Still, worth it. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“I can’t get over that I get to save someone’s life,” he told me.

After that, the team has 24 to 48 hours to get the stem cells to the recipient — which means that as of this writing, the stem cells are in her body. With any luck, they are already busy producing new red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. They’re entering her bloodstream and replacing diseased cells.

And our prayer, of course, is that she’s cured. That she can live a long, healthy life free of pain and disease. And that somewhere, another mom is crying tears of relief that her child will live.

It’s mind-boggling, all of it. My child saved the life of someone else’s child.

Nathan doesn’t mince words, though: “If you haven’t already, sign up for the NMDP bone marrow registry. You never know whose life you’ll get to save.”

The hope of healing. It’s hard to get over.

How to join the bone marrow registry

Joining the bone marrow registry is relatively simple. From home, you can register online with NMDP, where you’ll answer some simple questions about your medical history. They send you a cheek swab kit in the mail; you follow directions to swab the inside of your cheeks and gum, and then mail it back to NMDP. They test your sample and add your genetic type directly to the NMDP registry. The next step is to answer if you’re called, and then donate like Nathan did.

A few more things we learned:

  • You must be between 18 and 40 to join the registry. Cells from younger donors lead to better long-term survival for patients. That explains why we saw only young adults donating when we were there.

  • Women who have had children are rarely a match because their bodies develop antibodies with each child.

  • Every three to four minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer, like leukemia.

  • More than 75 diseases can be cured or treated by a blood stem cell transplant.

  • 70% of patients don’t have a fully matched donor in their family.

  • Donors and patients are more likely to match if they share a similar ethnic background. That’s because they’re matched by their human leukocyte antigen type. HLAs are markers found on your cells, and they’re inherited, half from your mom and half from your dad.

  • NMDP is a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy, helping save the lives of patients with blood cancers and disorders. It was founded in 1987 and has raised over $100 million for patient assistance, research, donor registry expansion, donor travel and more.

  • The first-ever stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor occurred in 1979 for 10-year-old Laura Graves, who had leukemia. She was the daughter of a Colorado veterinarian and his wife, and they were desperate for a cure. It worked, and the national registry of donor volunteers was born.

Comments? Email [email protected].

About the Author

Holly Spangler

Prairie Farmer Editor, Farm Progress Executive Editor

Holly Spangler has covered Illinois agriculture for over 25 years, bringing meaningful production agriculture experience to the magazine’s coverage. She currently serves as editor of Prairie Farmer magazine and executive editor for Farm Progress, managing editorial staff at six publications across the Corn Belt.

A University of Illinois agricultural communications graduate and award-winning writer and photographer, Holly is past president of the American Agricultural Editors Association. In 2015, she became only the 10th U.S. agricultural journalist to earn the Writer of Merit designation and is a five-time winner of the top writing award for editorial opinion in U.S. agriculture. She is an AAEA Master Writer and was one of 10 recipients worldwide to receive the IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in Ag Journalism award. She serves on the Illinois 4-H Foundation and the Illinois Council on Ag Education. Her work in agricultural media has been recognized by the Illinois Soybean Association, Illinois Corn, Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, and more.

Holly and her husband, John, farm in western Illinois where they raise corn, soybeans and beef cattle on 2,500 acres. Their operation includes 125 head of commercial cows in a cow/calf operation. Locally, she serves on the school board and volunteers with 4-H and FFA. 

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