When he graduated from Virginia Tech with a master’s degree in horticulture, Paul Stevens was searching for a job, but he has now found his calling — trying to save his life and the lives of those who suffer with him.
Tech alumnus Paul Stevens spent last summer like many other graduates — relentlessly applying for jobs in a less than booming economy.
“I applied for 26 jobs and only got one interview,” Stevens said. Having taught biology at the community college level, Stevens was invited back to Tech to teach freshman biology and gladly took the opportunity, teaching four classes last semester.
Within a few months of teaching, Stevens realized that even teaching would become a challenge. His worries over getting a job in a troubled economy soon seemed trivial as Stevens was faced with finding the strength to get through each day.
“I’d noticed some pain in my hip for a while, and when the doctor took an X-ray, he found a tumor the size of a tennis ball,” Stevens said. “I was immediately taken to Wake Forest hospital.”
After two weeks of tests, Stevens received word of his grave diagnosis: multiple myeloma, cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow.
“It’s very rare for someone my age,” Stevens, 26, said. “The average age is around 60 or 70; they’re calling me a case study.”
With the necessity of beginning treatment as soon as possible, Stevens moved back home to North Carolina to be closer to the hospital. Now in his third cycle of chemotherapy, Stevens cannot deny the severe effect the strong drugs have had on his body.
“The chemicals build up in your body over time, so the longer I go, the weaker I get,” Stevens said. “I’m constantly nauseated, always tired. Just going to the mailbox and back, I get worn out.”
Reducing the number of classes he teaches from four to two this semester, Stevens makes a commute of over two hours for two days each week. “I feel bad that my students only have two days access to me in terms of office hours,” Stevens said.
The frustration he experiences with the inconvenience of a lengthy commute and constant fatigue is rivaled only by the passion he has for teaching and for the university.
“I love Tech and I love the students here. That’s the main reason I’m back,” Stevens said.
He admitted that somehow, despite all of the physical effects, not much has changed for him professionally.
“If anything, I’m more motivated now,” Stevens said. “A lot of people I’m teaching will become doctors and workers in health sciences. Who knows, one of the students in my classes could eventually find a cure for my disease.”
Senior Derek Rose got to know Stevens through his work with the Latter Day Saint Student Association.
“I have been inspired so much by Paul throughout all of this,” Rose said. “I can’t even describe how positive his attitude has been, and I think it’s what has helped him respond so much better than the doctors originally hoped.”
Because of his type of cancer, Stevens’ doctors informed him that he will need a stem cell donor in order survive the destruction that multiple myeloma has caused on his own plasma cells. Rose, now president of the LDSSA, has helped organize a drive with the National Marrow Donor Program to help find a donor not only for Stevens, but for the thousands of cancer patients nationwide who’s lives are depending on finding the right match.
The drive, which was held Thursday in Squires Student Center, aimed at building up the waning donor registry in the New River Valley.
“I think the biggest thing is that no one knows about donating,” Rose said.
Freshman biology major Alex Paulini learned about the drive through Stevens’ biology class.
“Paul is my TA and he told us about this,” Paulini said. “The Tech community cares and can hopefully impact Paul.”
Paulini stood in line with about 1,000 other students Thursday waiting to perform the matching process. Students filled out an application and performed a cheek swab to collect DNA data, which could match them with someone who needs bone marrow.
Second year masters student Sarah Lapp, a biomedical engineering major, said the cheek swab process “was very quick and easy.”
“If I need something, I hope someone could help,” Lapp said. “If I can be the person to help someone else, that’s great.”
Besides growing the National Marrow Registry, Thursday’s drive had a more important goal in mind — battling the misconceptions surrounding the process of being a stem cell or bone marrow donor.
“People think that donating involves a painful procedure, but chances are it’s as easy as giving blood,” Rose said.
The majority of patients like Stevens, 80 percent, only need stem cells, which come from plasma.
“It’s as easy as donating plasma, and then they ship those cells off and put them in someone who needs them, like me, and hope that they stimulate the growth of new bone marrow,” Stevens said.
The remaining 20 percent that need bone marrow require a slightly more complicated procedure, but still one that does not cause excruciating pain.
“I’ll be the first to say that I had these same misconceptions before I was diagnosed,” Stevens said. “The way things work is they call and let you know you’re a match, and you still have the option to say no or to say yes and save someone’s life,” Stevens said.
The procedure involves a doctor applying a local anesthesia to the hip and then extracting a small amount of marrow from that area, where bone marrow is harvested. “I was sore for a day or two, but it didn’t put me out of any of my daily activities,” Stevens said.
After losing a close friend to leukemia four years ago, second year Ph.D. student Sarah Surak and her husband didn’t hesitate to sign up for the national registry to donate bone marrow.
“If they had been able to find a donor she could have been alive today,” Surak said of her friend, who was only 24 when she died.
Still grieving over this untimely loss, Surak and her husband recently got word from the National Registry that her husband is a match for a 23-year-old male from North Carolina.
The two will be traveling south over spring break to have the procedure done at Vanderbilt hospital.
“When we found out, my husband was nervous at first,” Surak said. “Now, though, he’s pretty excited that he will be able to help save a life.”
Stevens has turned to his faith for strength throughout his treatment.
“If anything, this experience has given me a stronger knowledge that there is more to life than just this earth; this is just a small bit of our existence,” Stevens said. “When you face your own mortality, regardless of what religion you practice, I believe you have to face it spiritually.”
A record-breaking number of potential donors came to support Stevens during Thursday’s bone marrow drive.
Although Stevens has participated in four or five different drives, including one at UNC Charlotte and one at Appalachian State University, he said this was the largest turnout he’d seen at any drive.
“We’ve had nearly 1,000 come out today,” he said. “The largest drive the national bone marrow people had been to was 800.”
Stevens said students had been “happy to help out.”
“There really is a Hokie spirit,” he said.
Stevens said although he was “pretty tired,” after a long day of teaching and then greeting potential donors at the drive, he was hopeful the event could connect donors with persons needing bone marrow.
“All it takes is one person to save somebody’s life,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be mine, although that’s obviously what I’m hoping for. I wish I wasn’t sick so I could donate to help someone else.”
Stevens will be participating in another bone marrow drive at Radford University on March 24.