No transplant beds

[projekktor id=’19962′]

Cancer sufferers who suddenly find a stem cell donor should think twice before thinking they’ve conquered a hurdle. The other challenge cancer patients face is a long waiting list before they can get a stem cell transplant. It could take months before the transplant can be done and even if you’re in remission, you may still have to undergo several rounds of chemotherapy.

If 18 year old Laura Hillier was still a child she’d be getting her stem cell transplant right away. She found out a week ago she’s got a match to go ahead with the transplant to fight her leukemia.

“So we were like yay! That was like the big hurdle we thought everyone always says they have trouble finding a match like that’s the story you hear and to hear there’s this big waiting list for a special isolation room and transplant bed it was like what?”

Laura will have to undergo chemotherapy for possibly 6 months while she waits for her transplant. She’s undergone chemotherapy treatments since she was just 13 which has already permanently damaged her eyes, but if Laura doesn’t do chemotherapy and relapses she’ll be taken off the list.

Laura’s mother Frances Hillier wants to see changes made too, she’s written a letter to several politicians and says her daughter isn’t alone. There are presently 33 patients who already have donors waiting for a transplant at the Juravinski cancer centre but she says the centre only takes 5 new patients a month.

The Juravinski cancer centre says a special room that is air flow specific is needed for stem cell transplants and then the patients need to be isolated while they recuperate. They says they don’t pick people to go first in the waiting list, it’s a first come first serve kind of line but children definitely do not have to wait like adults do.