Patient Stories

How a simple cheek swab can save a life

The phone call on a Friday in April, 2008 announcing, “You have leukemia,” hit Monica Avila like a lightning bolt. She was 21 years old and studying for her last set of final exams at Johnson & Wales University before graduation.

Five years brings a lot of healing. I’m back to enjoying the outdoors with my family.

Florentine discovered lumps on his neck in February of 2010. He had 24 weeks of chemotherapy treatment and, despite some breathing problems that landed him in the hospital for a few days, things looked good after three months of clean reports. In December, the cancer returned and with options narrowing, his Boulder oncologist recommended a stem cell transplant. Florentine was referred to the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center (CBCI). "I wasn't ready to be dead yet," he says.

A student walking through a Massachusetts college campus engaged in one small act of kindness that saved the life of a Denver-area woman and started what both say will be a life of friendship and activism for stem cell and bone marrow transplants.

Cancer may have cost me my hair temporarily and two inches in my spine, but I gained wonderful new friends, some of whom are also survivors, a new outlook on life and a renewed immune system through my stem cell transplant.

As I reflect back on the past two years, the one thing I am certain of is that our lives were upended and changed forever.

My cancer is a rare one, one that only affects 3 out of one million people each year in the U.S. When my cancer came back following chemotherapy, I was thankful to have access to a clinical trial, which is now helping to control my cancer.