A LOCAL woman who survived leukaemia thanks to a stem cell transplant is marking the tenth anniversary of her treatment by encouraging others to join the donor register.
Alicia Tosca, who moved to Dunoon in 2020, is hosting a stem cell donor recruitment drive with blood cancer charity DKMS at the Bunkhouse this Saturday from 11am to 3pm. The event will be followed by a celebration party at Sinbads as she reflects on a decade since receiving the transplant that helped save her life.
Alicia was diagnosed with leukaemia in March 2016 while living in the United States. Just a month later, she entered remission after intensive chemotherapy treatment, before undergoing a stem cell transplant in June.
Now approaching ten years since that life-changing procedure, she is keen to raise awareness of how simple it is to become a potential donor.
She said: “We’re registering people for the stem cell donor register.
I believe we are having some baked goods donated too for sale for the fundraiser.
We’ll finish up and send the swab kits off to the charity before we go to the top of Sinbads to have a celebration party.
It’s so important and it’s so easy, that’s what I want people to understand. You just fill out a form with information and take a cheek swab, almost like a DNA test.”
Alicia was matched with a donor named Merlin from Germany only a short time after her diagnosis.
“It’s a wild process,” she said. “Some people have to wait a lot longer than I did. I’m very grateful that it was so quick.”
Merlin had hoped to travel to Dunoon for the anniversary celebrations, but an untimely broken leg has forced him to cancel his trip.
However, Alicia explained that she plans to head over at some point to celebrate the milestone with him.
She added that the logistics involved in stem cell transplantation can be extraordinary: “For him the military took care of his transplant because it has to be done within 24 hours and he was based in Germany and I was in the States.
It was stressful. To be honest I was more worried about my mum and my brothers.
I haven’t unpacked it all yet and I can’t believe it’s been ten years already, but it was very challenging.
But one of her happiest memories came when she learned she was in remission on her birthday.
She said: “I had been in hospital for four weeks receiving chemo and on my 23rd birthday the nurses came in to say I was in remission. So I get to celebrate the anniversary of that every year on my birthday.
It was very nice and very overwhelming. I got to spend some time with my family and celebrate my birthday.”
Born in Florida and treated in South Carolina, Alicia had long felt a connection to Scotland through her family. Her mother is originally from Dunoon and her father was stationed in the town while serving with the US Navy.
She said: “I love it here, half my family’s from here and my mum’s from Dunoon originally and my dad was stationed here with the navy.
I’ve always wanted to come back over and stay for longer than just a four-week summer trip or something like that.
When the Covid pandemic prompted her to reassess her future, she decided not to wait any longer.
She added: “It worked out — Covid happened and I was looking for a change of job and a change of scenery. At the time I wasn’t five years cancer free yet, and that was the goal because that’s when you’re considered cured.
So I put my life on hold but I didn’t want to wait those five years to move to Scotland and enjoy my life.”
Alicia moved to Dunoon in September 2020 and says she has never looked back.
“I didn’t realise how stressful it was living in the States,” she said.
Nature isn’t trying to kill me over here, we don’t have alligators, there’s no snakes or hurricanes, I don’t have to stress about that.
I like the cold, I like small towns and I don’t have to drive over here. I definitely didn’t realise how stressful dealing with mother nature was.
She added: “I like the way of life over here, everyone’s nice and they’re very welcoming in Dunoon, especially because the US Navy was here for so long.
I’m very grateful and happy I moved over.”
As she prepares to celebrate ten years since her transplant, Alicia hopes her story will encourage more people to register as donors and potentially give someone else the same second chance at life that she received.
Anyone interested in joining the stem cell donor register can visit the DKMS recruitment drive at the Bunkhouse between 11am and 3pm this Saturday.
