NEED TO KNOW
Growing up, Emily Coiro watched her beloved grandmother suffer from leukemia and lymphoma
The experience inspired her to become a blood cancer nurse in a stem cell ward
She eventually decided to donate her own stem cells, saving the life of a stranger
When Emily Coiro was 3 years old, her beloved grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia. About 25 years later, her grandmother learned she had lymphoma.
Inspired by her health journey, Coiro decided to work with patients who had blood cancers. In 2019, she became a stem cell transplant nurse. Even though her grandmother hadn’t needed a stem cell transplant, seeing her struggle with illness and undergo chemotherapy was a life-changing experience for Coiro.
“Blood cancer is special to me, because of her,” says Coiro, 34, who lives in Totowa, N.J. “I love my Grammy. She’s always been my biggest supporter — she’s helped me be who I am.” The two talk and text often, and fortunately, Coiro’s grandmother is well and in remission.
Coiro worked for six years as an inpatient nurse at John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Program. She cared for patients getting chemotherapy and radiation in the days before receiving a potentially lifesaving stem cell transplant.
“Sometimes it’s the only option for survival,” Coiro explains. “It’s horrible to get a diagnosis of a blood cancer requiring a stem cell transplant. It’s very scary — and I just want to be their greatest support system.”
A lot of her job, she says, was encouraging patients to take things one day at a time. “It’s really hard,” she says. “You see a lot of patients be like, ‘Okay, I just have to get through this and then I’ll be okay.’ “
It was after she started working within Hackensack Meredian Health that she participated in a nursing residency program, where she learned that anyone can sign up to be a donor. In winter that year, she went online to order free sample kits from NMDP (formerly known as the National Marrow Donor Program and Be The Match). She ordered a kit for herself and her husband; it’s a simple cheek swab. “We did it together,” Coiro says.
“I actually thought my husband, being 100% Italian, would be a great match for everybody in New Jersey. Northern New Jersey is like 100% Italian,” she jokes. “I never thought they’d call me.”
But they did. In May 2024, Coiro had just graduated from nurse practitioner school and accepted a new position as an outpatient stem cell transplant nurse (she’d been working as an inpatient nurse on the stem cell transplant floor). Three days after her graduation, she received a call from NMDP saying she matched with a leukemia patient.
Hackensack Meridian Health
Emily Coiro donates her stem cells
“My jaw just dropped to the floor. I was like, “Are you sure? Are you sure it’s really me? Am I the right person?” Coiro says. She asked if they had mixed up her sample with her husband’s.
Coiro was assured that she was the match, and she immediately began the testing and screening process to make sure she qualified to donate.
“I was so nervous,” she says. “I was worried that I wasn’t going to be a good donor.”
She wasn’t worried about the retrieval process because she knew what to expect, but she was afraid something else might disqualify her.
“If you get a cold or anything, that pushes back the process,” she says. “I had to make sure that nothing could happen to me because if something happened to me, that meant that I would jeopardize the recipient.”
Over the summer, about five days before she was scheduled to donate, she gave herself injections to help blood cells from her bone marrow go into her blood so they could be collected.
“It feels like the flu, like you have a bad virus and you get kind of achy in your bones,” she says. “Because the bones are literally just spewing out blood cells. You feel your bones working.”
The day finally arrived for her to donate her stem cells. It happened to be her grandmother’s birthday. “This is a sign that everything will be okay,” she remembers thinking.
Hackensack Meridian Health
Emily Coiro during stem cell donation
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She didn’t mind the six-hour procedure. “You’re in a big comfy chair the whole day,” she says. “You’re just chilling.” It helped that all the nurses she worked with — and the nurses she was about to start working with — visited her while she donated.
“This is a life-saving opportunity, and it’s amazing to do as a nurse,” Coiro says. “I just want to do everything I can to help.”
These days, in Coiro’s new position as an outpatient nurse practitioner, she is often working with people who are donating stem cells to strangers. She’s able to connect with them and share her experience.
While she has never met the person who received her stem cells, she thinks about them every day, she says. She’s proud of what she’s done — and so is her grandmother.
“I think she’s probably still not over it,” Coiro says. “She sends me text messages saying, ‘You’re my hero.’ “
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