ORLANDO, Fla. — A Central Florida woman recently graduated from the University of Central Florida with a career goal of saving lives.
Little did she know, she would save a perfect stranger before she even had a chance to enter the medical field, and it all started one day on campus.
What You Need To Know
- A University of Central Florida student was approached on campus recently and stopped by a representative seeking stem cell donors
- Ella Pfeifer ignored the request at first but then decided to consider it and went for a swab test
- Eventually, she got a call that her sample was a match and reported to make a donation to help a blood cancer patient
"As I was walking by, they kinda like stopped me and they were like, 'Hey, if you do this for us, we'll give you that.' You kinda hear that thing a lot around the UCF campus," Ella Pfeifer said.
Pfeifer didn't give it a second thought until she was at Starbucks and her friend suggested she listen to the pitch to help.
"Came back out, they told me about their amazing mission with saving individuals with blood cancer and how it really is such a simple process to get involved," she said.
Pfeifer took a swab test, gave her contact information, and that was it.
Fast forward to a phone call she thought was spam during a movie night with her mother.
"And they called my mom, and they were like, 'Hey, do you know Ella? She's a match for a bone marrow patient,' and I was like, what?" Pfeifer said.
So, the process of donating stem cells worked in this case. Pfeifer had a physical and two shots leading up to donation day.
"I just kinda sat there in a comfy chair and had a couple IVs in, and that was about it," Pfeifer said. "It wasn't painful at all."
Her stem cells were transplanted into a blood cancer patient to try to help that person survive the disease.
Pfeifer said she had no idea this would be the outcome. All of her expenses were covered, including travel and lodging.
To learn more about donating, visit the NMDP website.
