In the blink of an eye, I went from a healthy 41-year-old to having the immune system of a newborn. I was told that the sudden sharp pain in my back that I took to be a kidney stone was, instead, a symptom of acute myeloid leukemia , an aggressive blood cancer. Within days, I began rounds of chemotherapy, followed by more blood and plasma transfusions than I could count, and months in and out of the hospital. Then came a lifesaving stem cell transplant from an amazing 27-year-old stranger, now my angel, from the stem cell donor registry. Her generous gift, the reason I encourage people to join the donor registry , gave me a new immune system — but not until my medical team had wiped out the old one. As if it were possible, the stem cell transplant was even more brutal than the initial

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