Cancer and Clinical Services Patient Stories

A new birthday

When you have a bone marrow transplant, it’s often said that you have a new birthday. For Romayne Kaffen, that’s Nov. 8, the day she received life-saving stem cells from someone who was a perfect match.

Yet Romayne’s successful transplant story begins long before November 2021. She first came to the OSUCCC – James two years earlier at the insistence of her primary care doctor, internist Nazhat Taj-Schall, MD, after initial tests failed to pinpoint a reason for her ongoing exhaustion.

During a weeklong stay at The James, Romayne went through more extensive screening. “All these tests, and there still weren’t any answers,” she says. “But the doctors were determined and ordered a bone marrow sample just to be certain I was in the clear. It turns out that I had myelodysplastic syndrome.” With MDS, blood cells are poorly formed or don’t work properly, and treatment is intended to slow the disease. In Romayne’s case, there appeared little chance that her condition would progress into leukemia, and she spent more than a year getting treatment to increase her healthy white blood cell count.

“At every appointment, they were keeping an eye on things,” she explains. “That’s the beauty of The James — they’re so thorough, always checking everything and watching for changes.” Eventually, routine blood tests showed a spike in Romayne’s blast cell count, which are white blood cells that do nothing to protect against infection and usually indicate leukemia. Her weakness increased, and she was hospitalized for sepsis and a serious bacterial staph infection known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

Eventually, hematologist Hannah Choe, MD, confirmed that Romayne needed a bone marrow transplant to treat acute myeloid leukemia (AML). “I was convinced it was the end of the road,” she says, “but my care team kept telling me that they had a plan. Everyone was just so reassuring.”

Step one was finding a stem cell match. Although they were willing to be tested as a potential donor, Romayne’s kids were only a 50% match. Without any other living relatives, her search was added to an international database. “I’m so incredibly lucky,” she says. “There were two perfect matches for me — perfect — and one was a young 26-year-old woman here in the U.S. It’s still amazing to know that she did this for me, for someone she doesn’t even know."

Things moved quite quickly after the match, and Romayne checked into The James for an extended stay that lasted more than a month. “It was a long time, but everyone there was just wonderful, so upbeat and encouraging,” she says. “They even have an exercise room on the transplant floor, so I was able to keep exercising without any worry about exposure to germs. Their kindness helped the time pass more quickly.”

Unfortunately, as often happens with chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, Romayne did lose her hair. “I was so grateful that my life was being saved, but that was incredibly hard,” she says. “It’s just such a reminder of being sick, and I just wanted to look like myself.”

To help cancer patients like Romayne, The James offers Hope’s Boutique, a full-service, nonprofit retail store that sells hats, wigs, accessories and other items designed to help patients look and feel their best. “I got an actual prescription for my wig from my doctor, and I found one made from human hair that’s long and blonde, just like my natural hair. The store actually discounts the price of their wigs, and some insurance companies cover the cost,” Romayne explains. “To this day, many people don’t even know what I went through because I was able to look just like I did before I started the transplant process. That’s been especially important to me when I’m around my grandkids. I just want to be seen as the same person I’ve always been.”

In addition to the outstanding care and kindness she’s received at Ohio State, Romayne also emphasizes the importance of any patient’s caregiver. “I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but my husband, Neal, has played such a significant role in my recovery. He’s been at every appointment, kept track of all my medications, takes notes and makes sure I understand all of my treatment details — as the patient it can be hard to listen all the time,” she says. “They get that at The James. Even during COVID, my team made sure he was included in every appointment.”

Now post-transplant with increasingly longer gaps between appointments with Dr. Choe, Romayne’s energy has returned, and she’s back to hiking and biking like before. That Nov. 8 birthday is getting closer too.

“I really want others to know that The James can save them, like they did me,” she says. “I’ll tell any patient I meet that they just need to trust their doctor’s plan and that there’s more life ahead.”