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<\/a>. She cared for patients getting chemotherapy and radiation in the days before receiving a potentially lifesaving stem cell transplant.<\/p>\n “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<\/a>. It’s very scary \u2014 and I just want to be their greatest support system.”<\/p>\n A lot of her job, she says, was encouraging patients to take things one day at a time. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see a lot of patients be like, \u2018Okay, I just have to get through this and then I’ll be okay.\u2019\u00a0“<\/p>\n It was after she started working within Hackensack Meredian Health<\/a> 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<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually thought my husband, being 100% Italian, would be a great match for everybody in New Jersey. Northern New Jersey is like 100% Italian,\u201d she jokes. “I never thought they’d call me.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a> patient.<\/p>\n Hackensack Meridian Health<\/p>\n Emily Coiro donates her stem cells<\/p>\n \u201cMy 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. \u00a0She asked if they had mixed up her sample with her husband\u2019s.<\/p>\n Coiro was assured that she was the match, and she immediately began the testing and screening process to make sure she qualified to donate.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so nervous,\u201d she says. \u201cI was worried that I wasn’t going to be a good donor.”<\/p>\n She wasn’t worried about the retrieval process because she knew what to expect, but she was afraid something else might disqualify her.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you get a cold or anything, that pushes back the process,” she says. \u201cI had to make sure that nothing could happen to me because if something happened to me, that meant that I would jeopardize the recipient.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like the flu, like you have a bad virus and you get kind of achy in your bones,” she says. \u201cBecause the bones are literally just spewing out blood cells<\/a>. You feel your bones working.\u201d<\/p>\n The day finally arrived for her to donate her stem cells. It happened to be her grandmother’s birthday. \u201cThis is a sign that everything will be okay,” she remembers thinking.<\/p>\n Hackensack Meridian Health<\/p>\n Emily Coiro during stem cell donation<\/p>\n![\"Hackensack](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/773436d1c145b041afb3ddb092e0663f.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Hackensack](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/83586ccac21ff6b98f9fc1855cd1f923.jpeg\"\/)
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