Menu
Lewis Allan is a Process Engineer in Hystar. Normally, he fills his days working on projects and ensuring our customers are receiving top notch products. But recently, he had to take some time off work for a different sort of project: saving the life of a person battling lymphoma.
It all started some time back, while donating blood in the UK. With a simple mouth swab, Lewis registered to become a stem cell donor. The thing with the stem cell donation is that a donor has to be an exact match to the patient. When a potential match is found in the system, more extensive blood tests are required to ensure the match is exact. All the world registries are connected, so if a local match can’t be found, the global registries are searched to find the exact profile that matches the patient.
Timing is also key. There is usually a very specific window of time in the lymphoma treatment where stem cell transplant would work, so the patient has to match that, too. That was the case here, and why Lewis was contacted.
For Lewis, donating stem cells to help save a life is a no-brainer.
“Honestly, I just want to help people,” he explains. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor, because I wanted to directly help people, but then I changed my mind and am now professionally helping people in another way, by working with green hydrogen. I always live with the mentality that if there is an opportunity to help someone, I will do it, and hope that others would do it, too.”
The physical process – or stem cell “harvest” – starts by receiving a drug five days before the procedure. The donor needs to inject themselves with the drug every day, essentially kicking their body into action to produce a lot of stem cells. As Lewis notes, the injecting part was not fun. Even worse, however, was the accompanying back and bone pain. Since the stem cells are formed in the bones, the pain can be quite intense as the pressure continues to build within the bones. Once formed, the stem cells move into the blood stream, which is where they’re “harvested” from on the 5th day after injections are started.
In spite of the pain, Lewis is steadfast in his conviction of having done the right thing.
“I didn’t really need to do anything; it’s just some extra cells that I am donating. But for the other person, it can save their life. It’s such low effort from my side, even with all the pain, but the consequences of it are life changing for another human.”
Modest as he may be about it, donating stem cells is a big deal. In addition to treating cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia, stem cells can be used to tackle other diseases, such as sickle cell disease and metabolic disorders. On behalf of all HyStars, we can confidently state that we’re all really proud of Lewis, and grateful to have someone who cares so much about helping others as part of the Hystar family.
If you’re interested in potentially saving a life, too, you’re encouraged to register as a stem cell donor. Check out https://swabtheworld.com/en/ for more information on how to register in your country.
© 2023 All rights Reserved.