(WHDH) — Cancer has made it hard for Kiia Stallworth to do the things she loves.
“I want to live so much and there’s so many things that I still want to do,” Kiia siad.
At just 43-years-old the mom of three is fighting for her life.
“I want to see my grandkids – I want to see them experience life,” Kiia said.
The Providence native has multiple myeloma – a type of blood cancer.
A stem cell transplant could cure her.
“I need this to live,” Kiia said.
Kiia has not found a genetic match in her family.
So her life is now literally in the hands of strangers.
“I’m asking for your blood, I’m asking for something from people because I need it,” Kiia said.
Kiia is most likely to find a match with someone who shares her ethnic background.
And that makes the chances for her heart-breakingly low.
“Yeah, that broke my heart,” Kiia said.
*Be the Match* – an organization that helps facilitate stem cell transplants – says Black patients are the least likely to find a match.
Their U.S. donor registry includes about nine million people. But only 8% of them are Black.
Mass General Doctor Areej El-Jawahri had more than a dozen patients of color waiting for matches earlier this year.
“It’s really hard for us when we don’t have a donor when we know we have a treatment that could potentially cure this patient yet we are unable to do it because of a lack of donor,” Dr. El-Jawahri said.
Joining the registry is easy. Sign up online for a DNA kit and just swab the inside of your cheeks – that’s it. Drop the kit in the mail and wait to see if you’re a match.
If you are – sharing your stem cells is usually pretty simple.
Most people go through a process that’s similar to giving blood.
In some cases you may be asked to go under anesthesia when stem cells are collected from your hip bone.
“I just feel that God got me through this whole thing,” Patrick Languzzi said.
When Patrick was diagnosed with leukemia, doctors told him he’d only live three more months without a transplant.
“It was like a punch to the gut. My two biggest concerns when I got diagnosed was my parents—my mother having to bury me. And my son not having a dad,” Patrick said.
Patrick found a life-saving donor in the UK.
This spring he flew to London to thank the man who saved him.
“We met at the airport at arrivals and I gave him a big hug. The first words out of my mouth was I love you—you’re like my brother,” Patrick said.
Kiia is praying she’ll have someone to thank.
“This is what is going to save my life. I don’t know about anything else right now. This is all I got.”
To help Kiia, click on this link.
More details on how you can help Kiia and others who need a stem cell donation can be found here, including info on how to join the Be The Match registry.
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