The first thing you notice is the matching bracelets.
A thin gold band graces Hannah Bradley’s left wrist. It says, “U are my hero!” It was a birthday gift from Camila Quino, who proudly displays an identical bracelet, a gift from Bradley that reads, “You saved me!”
The bracelets are the most visible symbol of a forever bond these two 26-year-old women have shared for nearly two years, though Bradley and Quino live 1,500 miles apart and, until the summer of 2024, they had never met.
Back in 2022, when they were total strangers, Bradley saved Quino’s life, donating stem cells that helped Quino fight off a third battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Bradley doesn’t wear the “lifesaver” title easily. “I did something so small,” she protests, “She [Quino] did the hard part.”
The “hard part” was more than a decade in the making.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Quino lived a robust, athletic childhood, playing soccer, studying karate, enjoying her life. But at age 9, Quino’s back began to hurt. Doctors assumed she’d been injured playing sports. She wore a brace for a while, but the pain kept getting worse.
“One time,” she recalled, “I was taking a math exam, and when it was over I couldn’t get up out of my chair.” The school called an ambulance. Quino had a bone marrow biopsy. She remembers a nurse callously telling her, “Oh don’t worry, it’s going to be OK. I had cancer, too!”
It was the first time she’d heard the word.
“I started to cry,” she said. “My mom told the nurse to get out.”
Going Into ALL Remission
ALL, the most common type of leukemia in children, generally responds well to chemotherapy: The five-year survival rate is near 85%. But the treatment can be long — up to two years — and tough. Quino remembers the nausea and especially the hair loss, a symptom she found “heartbreaking. I didn’t feel like a girl.”
But the drugs did their job, sending Quino into remission for the next decade.
Then, just before the end of her sophomore year at college, Quino experienced back pain again. Her leukemia had returned.
“It was very upsetting,” she said. “At 19, I knew what I’d have to go through again. I was living my best life, and it got taken away from me overnight.”
Once more, she began chemotherapy. This time, in anticipation of the side effects, she shaved her head rather than watch her hair fall out. But one look in the mirror and, “I hated what I saw. I cried for an hour.” She got a wig. It helped. “I felt like me again,” she said.
The treatment worked. Quino went into remission. But it didn’t last very long — barely two years.
“I never thought I’d have to deal with this a third time,” she said. “But when I was 22 and working full time, I felt some pain in my leg.”
Chemotherapy is less likely to work when ALL strikes for a third time. So doctors adjusted their strategy, giving Quino the immunotherapy drug Blincyto (blinatumomab), hoping it would reduce her cancer burden enough so she could receive a stem cell transplant.
“A transplant was her best chance for a cure,” explained Ji-Lian Cai, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope, “because she had relapsed already. We don’t want to give chemo a third time.”
Happily, the immunotherapy did help Quino achieve yet another remission, without the side effects of chemotherapy. But Dr. Cai explained that drugs alone could no longer guarantee a cure. Quino needed a stem cell transplant — and a donor. No one in her family matched. A months-long worldwide search began, giving Quino fresh anxiety.
“What if they couldn’t find someone?” she thought. “And even if they did, what if the person said no? And even if the answer was yes, what if the donor backed out at the last minute?
“I was so scared.”
Stem Cell Donor Gets the Call
The text message from the Be The Match organization (now called NMDP) caught Bradley by surprise at home in Springfield, Missouri.
“I was working nights, and I was dead to the world,” she recalled. “And this text comes: ‘Hannah? Please call!’”
Four years earlier, she’d seen a Facebook post about stem cell donations, decided to sign up, received a test kit in the mail, returned her sample and proceeded to forget all about it.
Now in late 2021, a NMDP representative was reaching out, telling Bradley she’d been matched to a patient in need, a young woman about her age.
“[Hannah] was a 10 out of 10 match,” said Dr. Cai, referring to the 10 human leukocyte antigens in white blood cells. Because antigens are inherited, siblings usually make the best choice for stem cell donation. But when no one in the family matches exactly, 10 out of 10 is about as good as it gets for an unrelated donor, sometimes even better than using a partially matched relative.
Bradley didn’t hesitate.
“It’s a minor inconvenience for me, but nothing compared to what [the recipient] goes through,” she said. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
It was a little more than a “minor” inconvenience.
“The donor sacrifices a lot,” said Dr. Cai.
NMDP flew Bradley to a facility in Virginia for blood tests. Everything checked out. Two weeks later she was on a plane again, back to Virginia, for the actual donation. In between visits, Bradley had to give herself multiple injections of filgrastim, a drug that increases the number of white blood cells. She took it in stride.
The donation process resembles a blood draw from your arm, but it can take four to five hours, and the arm must remain perfectly still. This can be painful, but Bradley handled it, all the while being told nothing about the recipient, a strict rule in donation situations. Bradley’s donated cells were shipped to City of Hope where, two weeks later, Quino received them via infusion.
Donor and Recipient Get in Touch
“She’s a very tough lady, very brave,” observed Dr. Cai, admiring Quino’s endurance through the grueling transplant preparation process, which included radiation therapy and intense chemotherapy to clear out her diseased blood cells and make room for the donated ones. When you look at her now, he says, “You can’t even tell she’s had a transplant. She’s smiling, her hair grew back. I’m so happy for her.”
Indeed, three weeks after her transplant, Quino was improving rapidly. “And after I left the hospital, I never needed to go back,” she said. There were some minor hiccups. Quino needed medication for osteoporosis and a mild case of graft-versus-host disease. “Taking things day by day really helped,” she said.
After one year, NMDP allows the donor and recipient to contact each other if both consent. Bradley and Quino said yes immediately, and before long before they were sharing texts and videos. Quino even became a supportive shoulder — Bradley was going through relationship troubles and also faced the trauma of having to sell her house. Quino even offered to take her in. (That’s why the bracelet Bradley gave Quino reads, “You saved me!”)
But the big event was yet to come.
It happened on July 21, 2024, a beautiful, sunny Sunday in Long Beach, California. Bradley had flown in with her partner Ashley and her grandmother Betty. Quino was waiting with her big sister (and caregiver during all those years of illness) Liz and their parents, Pedro and Aida. Everyone was excited, and a little nervous.
When the moment finally came, the two women clung to each other like long-lost sisters. Many tears. Many tight hugs (Bradley, considerably taller, lifted Quino off the ground in a bear hug). And many revelations.
Stem cell recipients take on the immune system and blood type of the donor. What about other traits? Quino’s once-curly hair is now arrow-straight, just like Bradley’s. Also, Bradley doesn’t care for spicy foods. Quino loves them. Or at least she did, pretransplant. Now “I can’t tolerate spicy stuff anymore!” said Quino, laughing. Coincidence? Who’s to say?
Both say their first face-to-face meeting exceeded everything they’d hoped for. They are committed to maintaining their new, in-person relationship, and they began that very day, when everyone hopped a ferry to Catalina Island to enjoy Avalon and each’s other’s company.
“It’s a little surreal,” remarked Bradley, “but it’s also incredible. I can now say I helped save a life, got to meet her and can share her story.”
“There aren’t enough words to thank her,” added Quino. “This is so special, so memorable. I always imagined what it would be like, and now that it’s real, it will always be close to my heart.”