
10/06/2025
“The odds of matching a stranger are incredibly slim. For a nurse on a transplant unit, the call felt like fate.”
When the Brennan 6 bone marrow transplant unit opened at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Julie was among the first nurses on the team. When she treated her first transplant patient five years ago, she was immediately inspired to join the National Marrow Donor Program registry. She completed the simple cheek swab and sent it in.
The years passed. Julie became an assistant nurse manager, and witnessed countless patients experience both excitement and heartbreak.
Four years after she registered, a voicemail stopped her in her tracks. Surrounded by her transplant team, she played it again, and again, and again. Each and every one of them was stunned: Julie was a match for a stranger in need.
The months-long process of blood work and screenings began, with her team's support. Dr. Michele Donato, chief of the adult stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy program at John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center , coordinated with the NDMP so she could complete the donation under the expert care of her colleagues at Hackensack University Medical Center.
The procedure allowed her to see the other side of an experience she'd had so many times. Having a central line inserted, which allowed an apheresis machine to spin her blood, retrieve the stem cells and return the remaining blood to her body, was a humbling lesson.
The process gave her a raw, unfiltered understanding of a routine part of her patients’ reality, right down to the lingering bruises and the vulnerability of needing help with the most basic needs. "It was surreal," she says.
Fortunately, being treated at Hackensack felt like being cared for by family. Her nurses were former colleagues of her own leader, and she saw the familiar faces of Jersey Shore physicians in the hallways. Dr. Donato also visited to check in on her.
While she must remain anonymous to the recipient for a year, she has already sent him a letter. “I thanked him for the opportunity to connect with my patients more,” she says. “A lot of patients who go to transplant have life events that they would otherwise miss if they didn't get treatment, such as seeing a grandchild be born or going to a daughter's wedding. I told him, ‘Whatever your thing is, sir, I hope it happens.’"
The journey gave her a perspective that has forever changed her practice.
“There’s no better reward than knowing you’re someone’s cure for cancer,” she says. “It’s a minor sacrifice—some blood work, some shots and 12 hours at an outpatient infusion—to give someone their life back.”