This is the emotional moment a woman who battled cancer at the same time as her mom broke the news to her all-clear mom that she was in remission, too. Dannielle Draper and her mom Kristin's cancer journey started in 2021, when an annual physical saw Kristin, 59, bounced between doctors before she was eventually diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer that causes scarring of the bone marrow. Over the weeks that followed, Kristin, from Annapolis, Maryland, was set to undergo a stem cell transplant, which would see her unhealthy blood cells with Danielle's healthy ones. By this point, Danielle had made peace with her mom's diagnosis, but when she undertook a series of tests to confirm she could be her mom's donor, doctors found a tumor the size of a fist in Danielle's chest while carrying out a routine x-ray. On December 21, 2021, Danielle, now 29, discovered she had Stage 1 Hodgkin's lymphoma, and she and her mom faced the prospect of fighting their cancer battles at the same time. Danielle, from Washington, D.C., started her chemotherapy at the beginning of 2022, while Kristin's sister became her donor for her stem cell transplant. Both Danielle and her mom were making progress in the summer of 2022, with Danielle in remission and her mom's transplant deemed a success. But in October 2022, Danielle found out that her cancer fight was not over and the disease had returned. Doctor's informed Danielle the disease was an aggressive form of Hodgkin's that was resistant to chemotherapy, and now she, too, would have to undergo a stem cell transplant, using healthy cells from her younger brother. That transplant took place on April 4, 2023, leaving Danielle extremely immunocompromised for months to follow. She was eventually given the news on July 14 that she was again all clear, and she could not wait to break the news to her mom, who was traveling to her apartment in Washington to read the results in-person.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 This woman never gets sick, so I was just so scared.
00:05 One day she kind of was just like, "I need this really intense procedure called a stem
00:12 cell transplant, and you're going to have to be my donor."
00:17 And I was like, "What?"
00:19 But then I was like, "Okay, I'm young, I'm healthy, so I really do want to be her donor."
00:26 A donor has to take a chest x-ray.
00:30 They had found a tumor right near my heart.
00:34 It was Hodgkin's lymphoma.
00:36 At first, I was in the position of a caregiver.
00:43 I can't really relate to what you're going through, but I'm here for you.
00:47 And then, all of a sudden, I'm in her shoes being the patient.
00:53 You just have to say, "She's going to be okay, she's going to be okay."
00:58 But she's 26 years old, and she's supposed to be traveling and having fun, socializing
01:04 and building up her career.
01:05 Instead, she was locked down with all these doctor's visits.
01:08 You just kind of put on this, "I'm going to get through this" face, like mother, like
01:15 daughter.
01:16 "I'm going to get through this just like my mom did."
01:21 The worst part wasn't when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's.
01:25 The worst part is when the cancer returned.
01:27 I found out my cancer was back on my birthday last year.
01:33 So that was a pretty terrible birthday.
01:36 Something like the 1% that the chemo treatment didn't work.
01:41 Why would she be in the 1%?
01:43 Why?
01:44 And my brother was going to be my donor.
01:49 After 100 days from a bone marrow transplant, they always do a PET scan to see if the bone
01:57 marrow transplant worked.
02:00 There are no words to describe that feeling of waiting and finding out if you're going
02:08 to basically live or die.
02:10 We were still waiting for the news.
02:12 My mom was going to come over.
02:14 I happened to be checking my email.
02:16 I see an email that says, "Scan is all clear.
02:21 Looks great.
02:22 Have a great summer."
02:23 Act natural.
02:24 Wait, are you kidding?
02:25 He's fighting me.
02:26 He's fighting me.
02:27 I'm coming.
02:28 Are you just kidding me?
02:29 Hey.
02:30 I need permission.
02:31 Oh God.
02:32 I'm so scared.
02:33 I'm so frightened.
02:34 This is the best news in the whole world.
02:55 I'm so scared.
03:06 The news just blurted out of me like word vomit.
03:15 All the pain of the last two years just pouring out of me.
03:20 The biggest relief I think I've ever experienced.
03:23 It was a hug of success, relief, and love, and optimism.
03:31 And things are going to be all right again.
03:33 We're going to get our lives back.
03:36 This is a club I certainly never wanted to be in, but unfortunately you're not given
03:43 a choice.
03:44 But even in the overwhelming darkness that is cancer, the human spirit is so resilient
03:55 and there will be beauty and there will be light and there will be love.
04:01 (upbeat music)