Blessing Stem Cells for a Transplant

In the chaplaincy residency program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, we met daily for classes in clinical pastoral education (CPE). Part of our class time was spent sharing clinical experiences. I listened with great envy as one of my Christian colleagues described how she had painstakingly arranged to bless the donor stem cells for a transplant patient before the infusion.  A stem cell or bone marrow transplant, also known as a BMT, can be a life-saving treatment for people with many conditions, including blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, for instance.

Several variables complicate the timing of the blessing. The doctor must inform the nurse of the exact time the cells are going to be harvested from the donor. The nurse must obtain an estimate of the time the cells will be brought to the patient’s room, where the infusion and the blessing take place. Finally, the nurse must call the chaplain right before the infusion.

My colleague described a pastoral scene where the nurse, the chaplain, a family member (perhaps the donor), and the patient placed their hands on the bag of cells while the chaplain recited a prayer. I had never witnessed such an event, but I could appreciate how a blessing could give new meaning to the barren landscape of sickness and unpredictable medical treatment. From a religious standpoint, I saw the opportunity to infuse the patient with hope and provide a new way for the patient to connect with God.

Then, one day, on my regular rounds of assigned floors, the opportunity to do such a blessing arose. When I entered the room, two Muslim brothers from Egypt were bantering back and forth in charming British accents, teasing each other and laughing. One man was sitting up in bed, and the other was sitting in a chair near the bed. The patient, Mohamed, was an extremely handsome man in his early 50s – in the late stages of leukemia. His brother was also handsome but with a little less hair, as he pointed out good-naturedly.

The brother in the chair said that he was going to have his cells harvested in a day or so and donate them to his brother. The brothers challenged me to guess which one was the eldest. I guessed the one in the bed, but I was wrong, and we all laughed. The three of us had established an easy rapport, and Mohamed invited me to continue my pastoral visits. After all, as the brothers declared in mock amazement, I was the “first Muslim chaplain” they had ever met!

On my second visit, when the patient and I were alone, he confided in me that he had struggled to reach the decision of whether to have the transplant. He had been told it could possibly increase his life by as many as five years. However, his hesitation and apprehensiveness about treatment came from fears that it would require him to spend those extra years in and out of hospitals. If the treatment succeeded at all, it was often debilitating, and he thought, at best, he would be risking the quality of his remaining life, whatever amount of time he might have on this earth.

Mohamed revealed that his genuine struggle was deciding whether to keep fighting this terrible disease or give up at this point. To help him decide, he had consulted his whole family, including his twenty-something-year-old son. It was after his son and other family members voiced their fears of losing him that Mohamed made the decision to continue the fight for his life. With lingering trepidation, he admitted to me that he could not resist his son’s plea.

When Mohamed finished sharing his skepticism and inner fears and talking about the love he felt for his son and family, I was so moved that I spontaneously asked, “Would you like to have your stem cells blessed before they are infused?” 

Mohamed’s face displayed the same degree of feigned, playful surprise that he and his brother had shown me when I told them I was the “Muslim” chaplain. Encouraged by his piqued interest, I explained what the blessing would involve and described what would take place and when.

Waiting for him to respond, my confidence began to wane. Had I proposed something too far-fetched to have any currency in this man’s reality? He was from a different culture. He was fatally ill and at the mercy of a giant, alien acute-care hospital, faced with a life-changing decision and being asked if he wanted to have a bag of cells blessed by a (what?) Muslim chaplain.

His response, however, was something I will never forget. He flashed a beautiful smile, spread his hands out in front of him, and with his palms facing upward, he said, “Why not?” 

As it turned out, I was unable to participate in the blessing of Mohamed’s cells. Unfortunately, the timing of the cell harvesting and the infusion conflicted with my normal work schedule. When I learned that it was going to happen overnight, I arranged for another chaplain to do the blessing.

I asked the chaplain who would be on-call that night. She was a Russian Orthodox woman named Annette. I was very lucky to have befriended her during my residency. She was a lovely, gentle, and faithful person, well-informed of Muslim beliefs and respectful of every patient’s religion. We were able to candidly discuss the prayer she would say. She agreed to avoid substituting the blessed name of Jesus for God so as not to offend the patient.

The next morning, Annette told me that Mohamed was “positively glowing” from the experience and had nothing but wonderful things to say about the blessing. The nurses had also joined in, which pleased him very much.

When I visited Mohamed, he was still glowing. His brother was present and boasted that he had donated more than 8 million cells—more than enough to meet the requirements. Furthermore, Mohamed’s body accepted the cells with no reaction. The two brothers would eventually return to their families in Egypt. Their good nature, which led to easy laughter, and their deep brotherly love comforted me like a warm coat on a cold day; and for a long time, I kept them in my prayers.