Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Southpoint Sun - 3
Leamington man gives hope with stem cell donation By Mark Ribble LEAMINGTON — There’s a popular new phrase that says ‘not all heroes wear capes’, and for one young Leamington native, that phrase certainly applies. Twenty-three-year-old Ryan Langille is a regular blood donor and gives as much as he is allowed to donate. Somewhere in the past few blood donations, he clicked on an option to become a stem cell donor, not knowing if he would ever be required to go through with it. About four months ago, just prior to the COVID outbreak, he got a phone call from an Ottawa number. Langille, who had been applying to police departments across the province, said it was an unexpected call. “I thought maybe it was for a job I had applied for,” said Langille. “Turns out, I was a potential match for someone who needed stem cells.” He gladly agreed to more testing to see if he was a true match. “For me, it wasn’t a question of am I going to do this, but when,” he said. He had to go through numerous tests including blood work, a physical and, of course, a COVID test. On Tuesday, June 16, he went to Toronto to make his donation and came away with a renewed feeling of pride. There are two methods of collecting someone’s stem cells. The first involves them going in through your hip and extracting liquid bone marrow, and then from there, they can extract the stem cells.
“It’s usually more invasive and painful,” he said. “The recovery is longer as well.” For Ryan, the method they used began with them administering a drug that causes his stem cells to go on overload, releasing them into his blood stream for easier access. Next, they hooked him up to a machine that pulled his blood from his non-dominant arm and replaced it back through his dominant arm. This process takes longer, usually four to six hours, but is less invasive and provides for a quicker recovery. “As the blood leaves your body, it is circulated through a machine that spins and extracts the stem cells before being returned to your body through the other arm,” he explained. Ryan’s procedure took seven-and-ahalf hours, but he was happy to donate. “I watched a nurse take my stem cells, put them in a cooler bag and take them out to the recipient,” he said. Although he has no knowledge of who the recipient was, he takes pride in the fact that they received his stem cells, which may help them recover from a serious illness. Stem cell transplants are used in the treatment of such diseases as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. For Ryan, the procedure was not uncomfortable. “Sitting still for over seven hours was probably the hardest part,” he said. “As long as you are comfortable with needles, it’s not that bad.” He’s now home in Leamington and
fully recovered from the donation. In the end, he is proud that he may have helped save someone’s life and
with all that is happening in the world today, we all could use another hero.
Leamington’s Ryan Langille is pictured during his stem cell donation. The 23-yearold spent the day in a Toronto hospital on June 16, after months of tests determining his eligibility. Langille family photo
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