Friends To The Marrow

Shawna Lofstedt and Mary Heather Yost talk and laugh together like old friends. But they didn’t meet in a school classroom. They weren’t sorority sisters. They’ve never worked together or even lived in the same state.

Yost donated the bone marrow that saved Lofstedt’s life.

“She was my only option,” Lofstedt said. “It was a prayer answered.”

Two years ago, Lofstedt, now 25, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

“I just went in for a routine checkup and basic blood tests,” she remembered. “I didn’t have any symptoms, even on the day I had the transplant.”

Symptoms sometimes include bruising, gum bleeding, a long-lasting cold and extreme fatigue — especially for more acute cases. But Lofstedt didn’t even feel tired. That made accepting her condition especially difficult.

“The only chance for me to have a normal life was to have the transplant. It’s the only way to be cured,” she said. For her type of leukemia, chemotherapy was not an option.

Without the transplant, Lofstedt said she would have had only a few years to live.

“It was scary. But my faith in God has gotten my through it,” the North Side resident said.

Finding a transplant donor proved to be a problem. Because marrow characteristics are inherited, patients have a 30-percent chance of finding a donor within their family. But none of Lofstedt’s kin came close to matching the marrow she needed.

So doctors turned to the national bone marrow donor registry.

The registry contains a list of more than 3 million potential donors - now including people from around the world. People who make use of the registry suffer from a number of life-threatening blood diseases.

Lofstedt’s doctors found a close match - but not exact - in Yost.

In 1993, Yost had a few tablespoons of blood taken to put herself on the registry. She had hoped to be a match for a little boy with leukemia in her town of Greenville, S.C.

“I didn’t match him, but then in November of 1995, I got a call from the Red Cross headquarters saying that I had started to match for someone else,” Yost remembered.

The next month, she was called in for more blood work. But it wasn’t until April 1996 that she received a final answer.

“They said it would be eight to 10 weeks max to find out if I was a match. So I was excited when I finally found out it would be a go,” said Yost, 25.

The procedure was done on an out-patient basis and, because she received a general anesthetic, Yost said she didn’t feel a thing - until after she awoke.

“For three or four days there was extreme uncomfortableness. But it was more of a deep ache than a sharp pain,” Yost said. “I just took Extra Strength Tylenol.”

All she knew of Lofstedt was her age, gender and what disease she had. A federal regulation forbids donors and patients from exchanging identifying information for one year after the operation. The purpose is to protect those involved.

“A lot can go wrong that first year,” Lofstedt said.

The women exchanged letters before and after the procedure. But because they had to be screened first, the letters didn’t reach the women for several weeks.

Exactly one year after the procedure, Yost received a message on her answering machine from the Red Cross telling her whom she had been a donor for. As she copied down the information, the phone rang.

“Mary Heather? This is Shawna,” Lofstedt said tentatively. “Thank you. Thank you.”

The women talked for two hours that night, discovering they had much in common.

“I told my friends, ‘She talks as much as I do,”’ Yost said, smiling.

The women and their families met last January in Atlanta, where Yost now lives. Lofstedt said their first meeting was amazing.

“It was strange. I kept thinking, ‘This person saved my life.’ But she doesn’t let you put her on a pedestal,” Lofstedt said.

“It is such a small effort (to get on the registry),” Yost said with a shrug. “You give such a small amount of blood.”

She came to town last weekend to help celebrate Lofstedt’s second “re-birthday.” The women talked for hours, planning their next trip together to Washington, D.C., and discussing the whole process that united them.

“It brought a whole new person and family into my life. It’s amazing how it happened,” Lofstedt said. “Everything fell into place somehow.”

Both agree their friendship will be long lasting.

“I can see us going to each other’s weddings,” Yost said.

“We have a unique connection,” added Lofstedt. “I’m sure we’ll always be in touch.”