Salem Bone Marrow Donor Gets rare Chance To Meet Recipient

From North Shore Medical Center: Sean McLaughlin will always remember the day in December 2016 when he saved a life. The origins of that day started out routinely enough. During a trip to the local mall in 2014, Sean was approached and asked to enter the National Marrow Donor Program. After a quick swab of his cheek, he was on his way.

Two years later, in September, he received a call that his marrow was a match to 16-year-old Jackson Taylor, a Toronto resident in need of a transplant to save his life. McLaughlin immediately consented to become a donor and on December 23, 2016, traveled to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for the procedure.

Physicians removed McLaughlin’s marrow from his pelvic bone and then administered his healthy marrow to Taylor intravenously. Because anonymity is so important in the donor process, McLaughlin and Taylor never met in advance and didn’t even know each other’s names. But the night before the procedure, they wrote a letter to each other. “I wished him the best and shared how happy I was that my marrow would hopefully cure his disease,” says 22-year old McLaughlin, a Quality Data Analyst at NSMC. “He thanked me, but what really caught my attention was that we both expressed that we wanted to meet each other one day.”

After the transplant, McLaughlin and Taylor continued to write letters to each other, always ending each correspondence by expressing the hope that they would have the opportunity to meet. The National Marrow Donor Program requires that donors and recipients remain anonymous until one year after the transplant. After a year passed, and several letters were exchanged, the care team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center invited McLaughlin to surprise Taylor during a follow-up appointment in Bethesda, Maryland.

“I knew very little about him and his family and I didn’t even know what he looked like,” says McLaughlin. “The room where we met was filled with many doctors and nurses, but as soon as I walked in I knew Jackson right away. It was very emotional. It was like we were old friends.” Since meeting, the two and their families have become even closer. They both like baseball, golf, the outdoors, and share many other interests. “Out of everyone in the world, I am amazed that I was matched to a donor who is my age and with whom I share so many interests,” says Taylor. “Sean saved my life and will always be a part of it.”

Image via North Shore Medical Center