Lunada Bay resident, Dan Cote had a bone marrow transplant 5 years ago. A 1 out of 25 million donor matches from Spain. New Blood. New Beginnings.

Dan Cote’s family moved to the Los Angeles area from Quebec, Canada in 1968.  The first in his family to be born in the United States, Dan grew up in Palos Verdes and graduated from PV High in 1991. He went on to USC, where he played ice hockey for the Trojans and graduated with a degree in business in 1995. Today, Dan lives in Lunada Bay and has two children – Lainey is a junior at PVHS and Beau is an 8th grader at PVIS. Dan’s career is in the technology industry. He currently leads the enterprise sales team in Southern California for Dell Technologies. While Dan’s passion was hockey for most of his life, his new love is golf and currently serves on the membership committee at PVGC.  Dan has shared his cancer story with us to provide hope and inspiration, give thanks to those that saved his life at City of Hope, and raise awareness about the National Marrow Donor Program, aka Be The Match.

In late May of 2015, feeling a bit rundown, Dan went to the doctor for what he thought would be a routine checkup and perhaps a prescription for some medication. Blood tests hinted at something more dire. After a bone marrow biopsy at Torrance Memorial on Friday, May 29th, a life-changing diagnosis was confirmed – Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).  “That was a very difficult weekend for me. The internet told me I had a 25% likelihood of survival. I was in a dark place. How could I have blood cancer?  Right out of the gate there was a huge outpouring of support from my closest friends.  Over that weekend, through research and phone calling, with friends by my side we decided that getting treated at City of Hope, and seeing world-renowned hematologist Dr. Stephen Forman, would give me the best chance at beating this and living”, Dan said. On Monday morning June 1st, Dan was admitted to City of Hope National Medical Center, where he would spend a total of 151 days and nights in a fight for his life.

“The first round of chemo was brutal. The second round was worse.  When you have AML, you have to keep blasting the cells or you’ll relapse. Days in that hospital bed turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and it sucked. Thankfully I had amazing friends and family around me. Most of them donated platelets throughout the process which kept me alive. But with AML, chemotherapy is not enough. Ultimately, you need a bone marrow transplant from a matched donor to survive and keep the leukemia from coming back. Bone marrow is the factory that produces all the blood cells in your body, and leukemia is that factory going haywire making mutated and cancerous cells”. Siblings are generally the best option for a bone marrow transplant, but Dan’s older brother Francois was only a 50% match, and hence a search was underway. Dan had to turn to the global marrow registry – a database of 25 million potential donors at the time – for his match. After nearly two months, Dan found his match nearly halfway around the world. Amazingly, a 41-year-old man in Spain happened to be a perfect 10-out-of-10 HLA tissue type match – one out of 25 million.

In preparation for transplant, a third round of chemo began in early Sept, followed by a week of total body radiation.  “Radiation for blood cancer isn’t targeted. It’s the whole body, head to toe. Three sessions per day, 14 minutes per session. Half the time facing the machine, half the time facing the wall. Probably the worse week of my life. They nuke your body so that you have no blood count. Zero white blood cells, zero red blood cells, zero platelets. I was barely alive. My body was a blank canvas, which it needed to be for my donor’s stems cells to work.” Meanwhile in Spain, an anonymous man was preparing for the donation process to harvest his stem cells. “The transplant day was set for September 23rd. My donor entered the hospital in Spain on September 22nd. The procedure removes blood through a needle in his right arm, passes through a machine to extract the stem cells, and the blood is returned to the body through a needle in his left arm. The process is time consuming, but totally noninvasive.” “A Be The Match volunteer courier traveled overnight with the bag of stem cells to Los Angeles; the bag of life. On the evening of September 23rd, that peripheral blood stem cell bag was hung on my IV rack, and over about three hours it emptied, and filled into my body. I was told it would take about 10 to 14 days for a new immune system to be created, and sure enough on Day 12, I finally had a white blood count. My donor’s blood. ” The transplant gave Dan a new blood type, new immune system, and a second chance at life.

“I’M ALIVE AND I’M ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES. I’M FOREVER GRATEFUL TO DR. FORMAN AND THE INCREDIBLE DOCTORS AND NURSES AT CITY OF HOPE THAT CARED FOR ME, AS WELL AS MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT SUPPORTED ME AND STAYED BY MY SIDE THROUGHOUT. MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU TO MY UNKNOWN SPANISH SAINT THAT HAS GIVEN ME THE GIFT OF LIFE AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE MY CHILDREN GROW TO BE ADULTS.”

Dan was released from the hospital 17 days after his transplant on Oct 10th, the day before his daughter, Lainey’s birthday which was really important for him. Life after the leukemia battle and bone marrow transplant hasn’t been easy. Two months after being released, Dan developed a mysterious brain infection and was hospitalized for another six weeks. He couldn’t walk, could hardly talk, and the outlook was bleak. “That was a really scary time”, Dan said. “When you have a new immune system, you’re very susceptible to infections, particularly in the first 100 days. While fighting AML was excruciating, that brain infection should have killed me. Dr.Forman and a team of neurologists at City of Hope worked their magic, performing a five-day procedure that still blows my mind. While not getting into the specifics, after those five days I could walk, and talk, and I survived, again. After being released, it took me a long time to feel fully healthy again, both physically and mentally. For me personally, it took going back to work to feel relevant as a man, and be totally healthy in mind and spirit. If it weren’t for the love and support of so many people, particularly my older brother Francois, who I idolized my whole life, I wouldn’t have made it.

“The last five years have been extremely challenging. I lost my father, Lucien, just two months before being diagnosed with leukemia and sadly, I lost my brother two years after my transplant.” Dan has told us that this 5-year journey has awakened an awareness of what’s truly important in life. “Getting AML was the absolute worst thing yet perhaps the most enlightening thing that’s ever happened to me. I try not to stress about the little stuff because life is short. I believe my new perspective on it has made me a better person both personally and professionally because now I focus on what really matters.” Today, Dan gives back the best he can to those affected by blood cancer. In 2017, Dan was recognized as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man & Woman of the Year for his fundraising efforts for LLS. Dan mentors & counsels those affected by blood cancer at City of Hope and other local hospitals. “When I was in the hospital, talking to people that had gone through what I was going through was the most uplifting thing for me, so I know how important it is to spend time talking with those that are struggling through the process now.” he says.

“For me, it remains a privilege to care for people like Dan and watch him recover from such a life-threatening disease. I am humbled by the trust he placed in us to help him, and it’s a feeling that never grows old. We celebrate with you each anniversary of your transplant. We are also grateful for the help you have given to other patients.”
DR STEPHEN FORMAN
CITY OF HOPE
Stephen J. Forman, M.D., is an international expert in leukemia, lymphoma and bone marrow transplantation.
www.cityofhope.org

“Happy 5th ReBirthday to Dan! This is a huge milestone. I had the privilege of meeting Dan almost three years ago because of his connection to The National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match. Dan has been an amazing advocate for our lifesaving mission and on behalf of everyone at NMDP/Be The Match, “We wish Dan Cote the happiest fifth rebirthday and cheers to many more!”
Joy King