By Melissa Wagoner
When Marianna and Tony Davis moved to Silverton from Roseville, California they were excited to start their new life.
“We were retired, and we had family all throughout Oregon…” Marianna said of the impetus for the move. “Then our daughter graduated from high school and went to college up here.”
Only 18 months into their new residency, disaster struck.
“We were in church, and he started to faint,” Marianna said, recalling the day she learned Tony was sick. “It was around Christmas in 2019.”
Emergency blood work showed cancer, but it wasn’t until several weeks later, when Tony nearly died, that the couple discovered what kind – leukemia.
“It was very fast and out of nowhere,” Marianna said, adding, “Tony’s never been sick.”
Placed on the recipient list for a bone marrow transplant, Tony began the difficult job of waiting for a match. But his chances – according to the transplant organization Be a Match – hovered around 79 percent.
“As a wife, you don’t have to be out there finding a match, you just have to be there for your husband,” Marianna said of the difficult time which, because of COVID-19 protocols, was even more fraught.
“I couldn’t be there…” she said simply.
Not even when Tony received the good news that a match had finally been found in a young German man named Tim who had agreed to donate stem cells that could then be frozen and shipped thousands of miles to save Tony’s life.
“It turned out to be a blessing because during that time I relapsed,” Tony recalled.
But all went well during the June 3 transplant and, despite a difficult and lengthy recovery, Tony is on the mend.
“I’m doing pretty good,” he confirmed. “I’m healing. And as long as I’m getting better, I’m pretty able to do the things I want to do.”
But surviving cancer has taken an emotional toll – on Tony and Marianna both.
“I haven’t had any relapses but it’s in my nature to look down the road to what’s next,” Tony said. “And there are no guarantees… it’s always going to be a cloud I’m under.”
“Something happens after you’re trying to survive,” Marriana said. “Now you feel all the stuff and you have to process it.”
Which is perhaps why, not long after Tony’s transplant, as Marriana was shopping in one of her favorite Silverton boutiques, The Wild Dandelion, she found herself sharing their story with the owner, Sarah Sampson.
“I was always going into Wild Dandelion,” Marriana remembered. “It was during COVID, and it was one of the few places I would go. That day I mentioned my husband having leukemia.”
And Sarah gave her a reaction she didn’t expect.
“She said, ‘I’m a donor’,” Marriana remembered. “And I was taken aback. Meeting a donor was amazing. I looked at her differently because she had saved a life.”
Sharing her own story with her new friend, Sarah recounted how, as a child, a family friend had been diagnosed with leukemia, prompting Sarah’s mother to register as a potential donor.
“I thought she was brave,” Sarah recalled, “and it really made an impression on me that she would do that to help someone else.”
Then, years later, when Sarah’s daughters, Ginger and Piper, were diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, the desire to join the registry was reignited.
“I realized how beautiful the gift of life truly was,” Sarah recalled, “and I knew if I could ever help someone else, I wanted to. That’s what prompted me and my husband [Derek] to register.”
And then the waiting began.
“I believe there is only a one percent chance of ever being matched, so I hadn’t thought about it much after I registered,” Sarah admitted.
But then, two years later, at the age of 35 – only months before she was no longer eligible to donate – Sarah received an email that would change her life.
“I was a match!” With a three-year-old boy in South America who desperately needed a transplant.
And so, the process began.
“The next step was a simple blood test at a local lab to make sure I was actually a good match,” Sarah said.
It turns out she was, and preparations began, first with a physical to determine her overall health and then through a series of Filgrastim shots that would stimulate her body’s white blood cell production.
“The first day was a shot in each arm, the next day a shot on each side of my stomach, then one in each thigh, and the day before the donation was one in each arm again…” Sarah described, “it makes you feel achy like you’re getting the flu… [but] it felt very slight when thinking of what the patient was going through.”
Preparations complete, Sarah was flown, alongside her mom, to the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in Houston, Texas where she made her donation.
“[T]hey place a needle in each arm,” Sarah said of the procedure, which took about eight hours and was relatively pain free. “Your blood goes through the needle on one arm and is passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned to you through the other arm… I felt better and better as my blood was removed, filtered through the machine and given back to me. I could feel the achy-ness leave my bones. When it was over, I felt great and completely back to normal! I had no lingering side effects at all… It has now been six years since I donated and I didn’t have a single issue or side effect… and I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Unfortunately, because she is now over the acceptable donor age of 18 to 35, Sarah is no longer eligible to do so. And yet, she still feels motivated to help, especially now that she and Marianna have become close friends.
“Every year on [Tony’s] transplant anniversary Marianna has brought me flowers and a gift,” Sarah said. “They are the kindest people and have made my life happier. I cherish her friendship.”
And now Sarah and Marianna have formed a new partnership with the goal of saving more lives through a donor registration campaign they’ve coined #GreatestKindness.
“We will carry kits at The Wild Dandelion for as long as we’re in business,” Sarah said of the project, which entails the provision of a saliva sample kit to all interested parties.
“Anyone can come in and register or even just ask questions about the process,” she said. “I can tell them how wonderful my experience was and walk them through registering.”
It’s an opportunity the women hope will have more people registering than ever before, especially in those cultures – Native American, Asian, Hispanic and African – that experience the greatest need.
“I don’t think a donor could ever know how much it means,” Marriana said. “When I wrote to [Tim] I put, ‘you are the hero in our journey’.”
But in Sarah’s opinion, being a donor is just as impactful.
“Once you go through a donation you feel this extreme attachment to this person and their family,” she said. “You now share the same DNA. That blows my mind to know. This little guy has my DNA in his blood forever, so whether we meet or never do there is a forever connection.”
Support #GreatestKindness
To register as a potential donor, find out more information or to support the cause visit:
• The Wild Dandelion, 108 S. Water St., Silverton
• The website www.bethematch.org
• Or text “GreatestKindness” to 61474
