Carlos' Story — Australian Marrow Match

Carlos was born in Mexico and at the age of 20 was studying for a Bachelors degree at university when he began experiencing some unusual symptoms including bruising and blood noses. His diagnosis was aplastic anaemia. This is a rare disorder in which the bone marrow fails to produce enough blood cells. It is not a malignant disease, but it can be very serious. Without adequate numbers of blood cells people with aplastic anaemia can become anaemic (low red blood cells), susceptible to infections (low white blood cells) and to bleeding and bruising more easily (low platelets). He was initially told that he only had 6 months to live.

After a year of receiving blood and platelet transfusions, Carlos decided that as they were not making him feel any better, it was not much of a life. He started looking into other options. The cure for aplastic anaemia is a stem cell transplant, however, the Doctors told him that as he did not have any siblings it was impossible to find a match in Mexico. Carlos did not have any medical insurance either which further complicated things. Carlos started researching his options and found a Foundation in Mexico which had a Donor Registry and did stem cell transplants. As there were not a lot of people on the Registry in Mexico, they had to look for a match elsewhere in the world. Without insurance this treatment was very expensive.

Carlos proceeded to take a blood test and moved on towards finding a match. After 6 months a match was found. This amazing donor was a 55 year old from Germany and it was close to a 100% match. However, Carlos needed US$200,000 to pay for the treatment and the subsequent hospital stay.

Amazingly, in less than 3 months Carlos’ friends and family raised the money through social media, events and churches. People from not only Mexico but the USA and Europe started helping. Carlos said it was an incredible chance for him to see what a beautiful opportunity that life had given him. He started to focus on encouraging people to register as bone marrow donors and because of his experience his friends started joining the Register.

Carlos proceeded with the treatment which involved total body irradiation and chemotherapy. As a young man he said it was hard to focus on being positive, but his focus was to get the transplant and to get better. Initially, following the transplant, the results were not great, however, after 2 months in hospital and 17 days after the transplant the Doctors said that the donor cells had taken over and he was able to go home. It was a success.

Carlos is now 28 year old. His transplant was in 2015, 6 years ago. He has been in Australia for over a year and although his condition is still monitored with blood tests he is healthy and happy. He refers to his donor as his soul-mate and he gives thanks to his donor every day of his life.

His experience has inspired him to educate the community and encourage people to register as potential stem cell donors, as he has first hand experience of knowing how hard it is to find a perfect match. He reached out to AMM over a year ago and he kindly agreed to share his story with us.

Earlier this year Good One Creative along with AMM, filmed the following video. As well as having an incredible story to share, in his spare time Carlos enjoys playing basketball, golf and kayaking. We were lucky enough to spend the day with him playing some basketball. The game turned pretty competitive when two other guys challenged him to a half court game, but lucky for us Carlos carried the team to victory. The night then started out with a few beers at Carlos’ local pub, swapping stories and playing pool. It was a very emotional evening for everyone but we throughly enjoyed it and really appreciated being able to listen to Carlos tell his story.

Today, September 18th, is World Marrow Donor Day and we wanted to share this story to commemorate all the amazing donors across the world who have saved so so many lives! It is a special day, celebrated once a year, to thank all blood stem cell donors. Unrelated donors, family donors, cord blood donors, donors who already have donated, and donors who are on the global registry waiting to donate. It is also a day to raise awareness among the general public and decision-makers about the importance of registering as a stem cell donor and the impact of blood stem cell transplantation on a patients’ life. ⁠

AMM would like to thank Carlos, the Good One Creative team, the film crew and every-one who contributed to this project. We cannot wait for all of you to see and hear this amazing story!