by Dawn Brazell
Public Relations

As a transplant physician, Michelle Hudspeth, M.D., often tears up when she sees firsthand the raw emotion on transplant day as parents watch the bag of bone marrow be delivered and administered to their child. 

"That bag offers hope. The look in their eyes says it all. For the child and the family, that bag means everything. It means their child has a chance. It is rare that I don't have tears in my eyes during the infusion."

Thousands of patients with blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases need a bone marrow transplant. The Be The Match Registry provides access to 10 million potential donors and nearly 165,000 cord blood units. According to the program, nearly half of all patients in the U.S. in 2011 received the unrelated transplant they needed. Most patients, about 70 percent, do not have a matching donor in their family.

Hudspeth, director of the division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, recalls joining the registry as a first-year pediatric oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital was having a bone marrow donor drive, and she knew she wanted to be a bone marrow transplant physician.

Dr. Michelle Hudspeth, right, gives her marrow recipient, Kathy Voigt, a hug.

"I was pregnant at the time and I almost put off joining that day, knowing that you can't donate while pregnant.  But I stopped, in between a million pages and doing procedures, to join."

She's so grateful she did.

Several months later on maternity leave with her daughter, she was called. It turns out that she was the only match in the registry for her recipient with them sharing a rare HLA-C allele. Most people on the donor list never get called given the chances of being a match are one in 524. Hudspeth underwent more testing and in April 2004 had a bone marrow harvest, choosing a spinal block for anesthesia instead of using general anesthesia since she still was nursing her daughter.

Of the two types of donations, a peripheral blood stem cell procedure or the more extensive bone marrow harvest, Hudspeth had to undergo the latter but said she didn't feel a thing during the procedure. Needles were placed into her back hip bones multiple times to withdraw bone marrow. She donated close to two liters of bone marrow and opted at her request to receive back a transfusion of her own unit of blood afterwards. She went home that same day. She said she was sore for several days, but was able to return to work on Monday.

"I would encourage absolutely everyone to join the registry, and of course doctors. We joined this profession to help and heal others. In a world of health care that is often tainted by red tape and insurance issues, this offers the chance to truly and simply help another person."

Hudspeth said she enjoyed getting to meet her recipient, Kathy Voigt, a 56-year-old wife and mother of three children. (Donors have the choice of meeting their recipients after a year following the procedure.) Voigt had relapsed acute myelogenous leukemia and the transplant meant that she was able to see her youngest son graduate from high school. Hudspeth got to meet her in 2006 and was surprised to find that they live only about two hours away from each other.

"My daughter was obsessed with Elmo and Sesame Street at the time.  Her oldest daughter was working as Elmo at Sesame Place during the summer break from college.  We met at Sesame Place and my daughter got her own special meet and greet with Elmo. As a mother myself, knowing that I was able to give another mother the chance to be there for her children means more than I can really put into words.  I would donate again in a heartbeat."

As a transplant physician, Hudspeth performs bone marrow harvests for donors for the National Marrow Donor Program as well as bone marrow harvests for children who are donating for their brother or sister.  She likes to be able to tell them that she has been through the very same procedure.
 
"In particular, I think, and this is my hope, that it is somewhat comforting to the kids that the person doing the procedure has actually undergone the very same procedure.  I think it is vitally important that our donors receive exceptional care."

Whenever she can, she encourages others to register. 

"When you have seen children die because they have no available donor, you will do anything in your power to prevent that from happening to anyone."