Above: Stem cell donor Carol Hatch and transplant recipient/lymphoma survivor Andy Michael met in person for the first time at Gift of Life's 2016 One Huge Night Gala in New York City.
Gift of Life is thrilled to congratulate transplant recipient Andy Michael and his incredible blood stem cell and leukocyte infusion (DLI) donor, Carol Hatch, on the ten-year anniversary of his successful, lifesaving transplant. It’s a huge milestone and the two marked the occasion on July 4, Andy’s actual transplant day, with a cross-country video call. While Andy lives in California, Carol lives in Massachusetts and they chose to share this special moment with their family and friends virtually.
“We feel it’s important to share this milestone,” said Carol. “We want people to see what the real impact is when they donate. You may never match a patient, but if you do, it isn’t only that person whose life is affected. Andy has a wife, parents, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, a community – every person who needs a transplant has a constellation of others around them who are also helped.”
In 2003, Andy was 44 years old when he found a bump in one of his lymph nodes. A visit to his doctor and a biopsy resulted in a frightening diagnosis: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. The best chance of a cure – a blood stem cell or bone marrow transplant – was not the first choice of treatment at that time due to high risks. For some individuals the disease progresses very slowly, and non-toxic treatments can control it.
“With that in mind, my doctors took a ‘wait and see’ approach at first,” said Andy. “Facing multiple relapses, I went through several treatments including monoclonal antibodies and an immune stimulating treatment at the tumor site, but these less toxic treatments didn’t work for me.” Andy had to go back on chemo after every treatment to get him back into remission, and by early 2014 it was clear: his best option for survival would be a blood stem cell transplant from a matching donor.
“If I relapsed again, there were no more good chemo options to try,” said Andy. “It was time to swing for the fences and try the transplant. Fortunately, medical advancements during the ten years between my first diagnosis and that decision point meant the risk involved had gone down a lot.”
However, his one sibling, a sister, was not a close enough match to go forward. His doctors started a registry search to find a stranger who shared the same Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) profile.
“A nurse told me she was confident I would find a match,” said Andy. “The number of Ashkenazi donors registered had grown tremendously over the years, and the search only took two weeks. I now know this is due to years of hard work by Jay Feinberg, his parents, and Gift of Life.”
In 2002, before Andy was even diagnosed, his donor Carol joined Gift of Life while visiting Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline, Mass.
“My parents founded a humanistic Jewish congregation in the Boston area, and we lived about an hour away,” said Carol. “I found out they were doing a donor drive for a patient – Dr. Ruth Spector – and were actively seeking Ashkenazi donors as it was her best chance of a match. A woman named Louise Cohen had organized the drive, and she was the one who got me registered with Gift of Life.”
Matches between donors and recipients are based on an inherited tissue type called human leukocyte antigens, which comes from our parents, similar to the way hair and eye color is passed through generations. The best chance of finding this match is with someone who shares your genetic heritage – with a similar ancestry and ethnic background.
Carol remained on the registry for 12 years, hoping to be matched with a patient, but it wasn’t until 2014 that she finally got the call.
“My sister came to visit me one Sunday and mentioned she had just reached the age where she could no longer donate through the marrow registry,” said Carol. “Literally two days later, Gift of Life called to tell me I matched a man battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and I was needed to donate. Later on, after I met Andy, he said, ‘You were just there, waiting for me.’”
Although the preparation for transplant was tough on Andy and his wife Stephanie, they also needed to renovate their house at the same time to deal with mildew that is common in their area and would be dangerous to Andy after transplant. That meant rapidly moving into a temporary apartment closer to the medical center.
“We put out a call to our friends before construction started,” said Andy. “Thirty-seven people showed up. Some came several weekends to help, and two families came from over 100 miles away. It was unreal, incredible, and we could not possibly have done it without their help.”
Their relatives visited during transplant, helping Stephanie deal with the 24/7 care transplant patients require, on top of working.
“I had a low-intensity regimen that was mostly done as an outpatient process,” said Andy. “Part of this involved radiation and part of it is immune suppression drugs. It is very tiring.”
While Andy was being prepared, on the other side of the country, Carol’s donation was arranged at an apheresis center in northern Virginia. Stem cells are collected from the circulating blood through the apheresis machine, and the remaining blood is returned to the donor. The process typically takes four to six hours, then a courier hand delivers the stem cells to the transplant center.
“They gave us a private room in the infusion center for the transplant, and it happened to fall on July fourth – the transplant has to go forward, holiday or not,” said Andy. “I could see the cells flowing through the line and was thinking, ‘Am I really rooting for these cells from someone I don’t know to replace my immune system?’ Granted, my immune system wasn’t doing a great job – it kept trying to kill me!”
In the months after the infusion, the transplanted cells gradually built-up healthy bone marrow, which started creating all new blood cells and immune system for Andy. It was a good result.
The first year after transplant is a time of recovery for the recipient, a long wait for the donor who hopes to hear good news, and for both of them, curiosity about who the person at the other end of this genetic connection could be.
“A year later I was waiting for the one-year call about learning my recipient’s identity,” said Carol. “My father was dying at the time, he was 90 and lived a really good life, but it’s still hard. Then the call finally came from Gift of Life asking if I was open to exchanging my information, and it was like one door was closing and another one was opening up. A few days later, Andy called me.”
“Carol is an incredible person, she is an incredible force for good in the world,” said Andy. “At that time. my recovery was happening a bit slowly. I didn’t have full chimerism yet, where Carol’s cells would have fully replaced mine, and that led to a relapse. This led the doctors to think of doing a second infusion. I was instructed to absolutely not mention this when I talked to Carol, but almost the first words out of her mouth were, ‘If you ever need more cells, I am here for you.’”
In May 2016, Carol donated white blood cells for a Donor Leukocyte Infusion (DLI), to help boost Andy’s recovery. These infusions are typically given in stages so doctors can assess the progress, but it only took the first dose to get results. Andy finally reached a state of full engraftment.
They still had not met in person, though, and then they each got a surprising and welcome call from Gift of Life: would they like to come to the organization’s annual New York Gala in June 2016 to meet each other in person before a crowd of supporters, other donors and recipients, and staff members? They agreed.
At Gift of Life's 2016 One Huge Night Gala in New York City, Andy and Carol were introduced on stage at the Grand Hyatt New York by actress Tovah Feldshuh, to a standing ovation. Tovah and the gala guests also sang “Happy Birthday” to Andy, as the event fell on his birthday, now a doubly special date for him.
The introduction was a beautiful and emotional moment, but what Andy and Carol cherish most today is finally having a chance to sit with their families and really talk.
“We went to the hotel bar after the gala and visited for a while,” said Andy. “Carol’s kids and her husband were there, my wife and my parents were with me, and we got to spend some time together. We then spent a couple days together going around Manhattan, visiting some New York family members with each other.”
Carol agrees that it was special, and as they talked, they began to realize just how much they have in common. Both love spending time on the water, and both have their scuba diving certifications.
“Both our parents created congregations, I’m not sure everyone can say this,” said Carol. “We both love water activities, kayaking and canoeing and swimming. He grew up a block from the bay on Long Island, and in the second part of my life I live on a lake. We are both Geminis – our birthdays are only three days apart – and we both play the Native American flute.”
Andy had taken up the flute years earlier, after attending a powwow at the University of California, Davis, shortly before his 40th birthday and discovering his liking for the instrument.
“Stephanie had a flute custom-made for me for that birthday, and that was long before any of this happened,” said Andy.
Carol’s interest in the flute was sparked in 2020, during the COVID pandemic, when she started taking lessons. That interest led her to enter the Gift of Life’s Got Talent! Contest, a fundraiser event, in 2020 and 2021. She was the runner-up in 2020 but took the lead in 2021 and was named the Grand Prize Winner.
On July 4, 2024, Andy and Carol enjoyed their local Independence Day celebrations but most importantly spent time together virtually. The video shows excerpts of their conversation, remembering the donation and transplant process, its many impacts on their lives, and how it has created their friendship. Finally, they took some time to play Native American Flute together.
Gift of Life sends their congratulations to Andy and Carol, and we look forward to many more celebrations in the future!
Andy is a seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, currently studying seismic zones around the U.S. including Puerto Rico and New Jersey. His wife, Stephanie Ross, is also a geophysicist with the USGS who currently focuses on tsunamis, and they live in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Andy majored in geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University, where he also received his transplant. He enjoys being on the water, exploring the outdoors, and playing squash.
Carol, who lives on Hickory Hills Lake in Lunenburg, Mass., with her husband Bill, is a retired teacher. Now she is an active volunteer in both her lake community and the broader community around her. Her favorite volunteer commitment is being a Big Sister to her Little, a nine-year-old girl who she was matched with by Big Brothers Big Sisters. Carol has run donor recruitment drives for Gift of Life, participated in fundraising events, and is a supporter of the organization’s mission to save lives.