In an emotional moment, the two Britons, Deborah Costello, and Tatton Speller met. In fact, the pair meet for the first time exactly 10 years after Tatton donated the stem cells that saved Deborah’s life..

Deborah, 65, says: “When I first laid eyes on him, I could hardly comprehend the magnitude of everything, but the fact that I am alive today is entirely thanks to him.” Deborah met her hero last November, according to the British Daily Mail. .

Tatton, 42, an author who lives in Whitstable, Kent, with his wife Katie, 37, admitted he was a little anxious before the meeting..

“We were complete strangers, and we came together quite by chance,” he said. “I had no idea who was going to walk through the door, although I knew Deborah was cute from the occasional emails we’d exchanged over the years.”

Deborah was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009

Deborah discovered a ‘pea-sized lump’ on the side of her neck in 2009, when she was 52 years old..

Her GP considered it a “fatty lump” but she chose to have it removed. However, tests on histology revealed she had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

She started chemotherapy in 2010 and scans in 2011 showed that the cancer was gone, but by the end of that year, the leukemia returned..

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More chemotherapy followed, but it became apparent that another option was needed and a search began for a stem cell donor. “When I was told my leukemia had returned, I burst into tears, thinking I was going to die,” Deborah recalls.

In the fall of 2012, she received a call to say a suitable match had been identified. She was admitted to the hospital and had the transplant on November 16. Deborah spent three weeks there in isolation to protect her newfound immune system..

She was told the donor was a 32-year-old man (the same age as her eldest daughter Faye) and British – but no more than that.

Eager to thank him, I sent a card through the NHS a year later (the first opportunity afforded by protocol), and Deborah still had the first contact from Tatton – a Christmas card, sent on their second anniversary.

Meanwhile, Tatton says he can’t believe how little he had to do to save Deborah’s life. “I just needed a week off work,” he says, and that allowed him to get five daily injections of growth factor to increase the amount of stem cells in his brain. blood, he recalls: “A nurse came to my house and I felt bad for a week“.

Tatton spent a day in a private London hospital while his stem cells were being harvested, which took about four hours. “It was tiring and not painful, and I went back to work the next day,” he says.“

6 months later, Tatton was told the patient was doing well, then a year after the transplant, he received a card from Deborah that simply said, “Thank you for the gift of life,” and, he recalls, “I was overwhelmed.” As the years went by, the two kept Contact via e-mail from time to time.

At first, Tatton was reluctant to meet with her, feeling unworthy of Deborah’s gratitude because of the “smallness” of what he had to do, as he put it..

Then, as the tenth anniversary approached, he felt the time had come and suggested they meet for dinner, and Tatton says, “Because of that little thing she did, there’s another person alive today and that’s amazing. Her family has already spent another ten years with her.” And 10 more birthdays.” He continued, “I would like to urge others, especially young people, to donate.”