\u201cYou definitely need the blood products to stay alive in that situation,\u201d she says, and she\u2019s grateful to all those who donated to keep her alive.<\/p>\n
In October 2016, she had a stem cell transplant thanks to her donor \u2013 a 30-year-old Australian man who was a match. <\/p>\n
Von Sturmer says it was an \u201cintense\u201d experience.<\/p>\n
Michaela Von Sturmer, left, with colleague Ali Levitt. Levitt set up a Givealittle page for Von Sturmer to support her during her cancer treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey described it to me like a garden; there\u2019s weeds in your blood, so they need to kill off the whole garden. They kill off your whole immune system with chemo, and then they have to transplant. So that\u2019s what the stem cell transplant is, somebody else\u2019s immune system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite high-risk. You\u2019re really prone to infection. I couldn\u2019t come near the school; I just had to be really careful because of any germs anywhere. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re that sick, you just want to be normal. Things like going to the mall or having a picnic with your family, you can\u2019t do, so that was pretty difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stem cell donors and recipients don\u2019t typically meet, but Von Sturmer got to write her donor a card.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut how do you thank somebody for that? I guess I would want him to know how much it meant, but also where I am and how I got back to my life basically and had a life to look forward to … it\u2019s just that gift of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tough as it was, Von Sturmer says she\u2019s been \u201csuper lucky\u201d with her recovery, though it took time to get back to normal. She says it is a two or three-year process to get well again.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people have a lot of trouble after a transplant, and I\u2019ve been really lucky [to have] amazing medicine, amazing community support, work, family.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s grateful to have celebrated her 60th birthday last year, and to be around for her children, her grandson and her \u2018bonus\u2019 grandchildren.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do look at old age as a privilege now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you donate [stem cells and plasma], you\u2019re not just saving one person, you\u2019re saving a family. Because I just think of my kids and where they are now, and I just hate to think where they would be if they had to cope with that loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
How blood and plasma donation works in New Zealand<\/p>\n
New Zealand Blood Service transfusion medicine specialist Dr Richard Charlewood says there are differences between whole blood and plasma donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole blood donations, that\u2019s the red stuff \u2013 just coming one way out of your arm into a bag, five minutes on a bed, and you\u2019re done,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom that, we get red cells, which carry oxygen. We get some platelets, which stop bleeding. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe clear yellow fluid that everything floats around in is the plasma, and that is essentially salt water with proteins in it. Its job is to distribute water and minerals around the body, as well as these proteins and the cells in them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plasma is donated through a process called apheresis. \u201cThe machine takes a little bit of blood, separates the plasma from the blood and returns everything that we\u2019re not collecting. The red cells all go back to the donor, and a little bit of the plasma to keep the red cells floating, and it just does that repeatedly back and forth for 40 minutes. And what we receive out of that is a bag of just plasma.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s used to treat blood loss and illnesses including cancers and immune disorders.<\/p>\n
You can only donate whole blood every three months, due to iron loss \u2013 but you can donate plasma and platelets as often as every two weeks.<\/p>\n