MEETING MY GENETIC TWIN

HOW A STRANGER SAVED MY LIFE AND BECAME PART OF OUR FAMILY

- BY Michael Wark

SIX YEARS AGO, my life was rocked to the core in a sudden and unexpected way. I was 27 years old and had spent most of my 20s working on my education. I was recently married to my college sweetheart, Lauren, and living in my adopted home of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada pursuing a career in construction management. We had both recently graduated and were getting ready to start a family. Then came cancer.

At first, I didn’t know if I was going to survive. By the time the doctors found it, most of my bone marrow was already destroyed, and I had no functioning immune system to speak of. I was rushed by ambulance to the Tom Baker Cancer Center in Calgary to begin immediate chemotherapy treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer.

My doctors quickly determined that my best chance at survival would be through a stem-cell transplant from a genetically matched donor. Combined with an intense protocol of chemotherapy and radiation, donor stem cells—immature cells with the ability to turn into any cell in the bloodstream—received through an intravenous transfusion would effectively rid my body of the remaining leukemia and restart my immune system from scratch. But until a match could be found, I was in a holding pattern of continuous month-long rounds of chemo to keep the cancer at manageable levels. In order to become cancer-free, I needed to find a ‘genetic twin’ who was willing to share a piece of themselves with me.