Transplant Survivor Takes Up Medical Research

When Jessica Ruston dreamed of a career in medicine, she had no idea she’d have to heal herself first. Jessica was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) at age 25. She describes her post-college career, as the supervisor of a phlebotomy (blood) clinic, as one of the ironies of her life.

“Here I was feeling bad and trying to calibrate the machinery using my own blood. I couldn’t get a reading. I chalked it up to the machine not working—never thinking it was my blood that was the problem,” she says.

Since her diagnosis in 1996 and subsequent allogeneic stem cell transplant, Jessica has been on a life adventure. She visited Peru for four months and landed three unusual jobs: working with a shaman, working in a children’s clinic and working as a guide in the Amazon jungle.

She came back to the U.S., adventures under her belt, and found a job in a medical research facility. Five years after diagnosis, she now works as the staff assistant to the director of Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) - a research clinic that specializes in the treatment of thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. Although she still entertains one of her dreams—to become a physician—she is enjoying her current life too much, professional and otherwise, to make that commitment right now.

Jessica finds the array of research at CHORI interesting, but because of her own history she has a special interest in one of its projects: the Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program. This program offers families of a child with a transplant-treatable blood disorder, the opportunity to store the cord blood of a newborn sibling free of charge. Cord blood can often be used instead of bone marrow or bloodstream stem cells in a transplant. (See CHORI Story)

Jessica attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison and received a degree in psychology. When she discovered, during her stint as the head of the phlebotomy lab, that she had CML, a donor was sought for the allogeneic stem cell transplant that would make her well. Surprisingly, it was her mother, Bev, who was the best HLA match.

“Although Jessica and I don’t look alike, we’ve always acted alike. Now I know there’s a genetic reason for this,” Bev Ruston says, half-kiddingly. “We joked at the time of the transplant about her becoming a short redhead like me.”

Being both mother and donor for her daughter’s transplant was hard on Bev. “Sometimes I think donors who don’t know their recipients are lucky; they aren’t faced with the ups and downs,” says Bev. “In the first year after transplant, Jessica was sick a lot. Each time she had a dip I felt responsible. I felt that my stem cells weren’t strong enough.”

Today, Jessica is healthy and Bev participates as a volunteer in the BMT InfoNet Patient-to-Survivor Link Program. “I was helped enormously by the mothers of two women who had transplants,” says Bev. “They helped in practical as well as emotional ways. I’d like to do the same for others.”

Helping her daughter through a transplant has taught Bev many lessons. “I’m more patient now. I’ve learned to discriminate between the irritating and the important.”

“I’ve also learned the humbling art of accepting help. We all like to be the one that gives, but you forget your pride when your child’s life is the prize.”

“I think that sometimes we romanticize illness—especially in the young. This is not a pretty affair—nor even a noble one. Rather, illness, treatment, and ultimate recovery require determination, stubbornness, toughness, pragmatism, and endless hard work.”

For Bev and Jessica Ruston, the endless hard work has paid off handsomely.

CHORI Sibling Donor Cord Blood Program