Alton Native Saves a Life with Anonymous Stem Cell Donation

ALTON - When Alton native Christa Hollensteiner received the call, she almost hung up, convinced it was another telemarketer.

Instead, she listened as the woman on the other end reminded her that, ten years previously, Hollensteiner had joined the DKMS stem cell donor registry. Hollensteiner had completely forgotten about it. But then she heard the words that would change her life: They had found someone who needed stem cells to survive, and Hollensteiner was a full match.

“All they said they could tell me is that it’s a 60-year-old female, and this is her last chance,” Hollensteiner remembered. "I immediately just thought about my mom. I just kept thinking, my mom just retired. My mom is a brand new grandma. I can’t imagine my mom’s life being cut right now and her being ripped from my life from this awful disease. And if there’s an opportunity to save this life, I’m going to do it. It was not a question of if. It was just a question of when and how soon can we get this process started.”

Meanwhile, 60-year-old Teresa Carrol-Childers, residing in Florida, was tired. She had survived breast cancer, undergone chemo, radiation and a lumpectomy, only to be hit with another curveball.

She had myelodysplastic syndromes, the precursor to leukemia. She could receive chemotherapy for the rest of her life to keep it at bay, but the only way to cure it was with a stem cell transplant.

Her brother tested, but discovered he wasn’t a match. So Carrol-Childers began the process of seeking an anonymous donor, a stranger who would be willing to donate stem cells and save her life.

“I had never even heard of anyone donating stem cells,” she said. “I would’ve been right there, first in line to donate, in my 20s or 30s if I’d been given an opportunity. I gave blood for many, many years. Had I known about it, I would have freely given. But you just don’t hear about it.”

Hollensteiner had joined the registry totally by coincidence. A friend, working in a retail pharmacy, had asked her to swab her cheek for a stem cell drive. Hollensteiner was happy to do it. The swab took 60 seconds to complete, then she mailed it off to DKMS, and her name was added to the list.

Ten years later, when she was reminded of this fateful decision, Hollensteiner knew immediately that she was on board. The lead-up to the donation included a few vaccinations and labwork. Her bones felt sore for a few days before, as the vaccines had stimulated stem cell growth.

But the actual donation itself, a peripheral donation, took less than a day and was really not a big deal for either Hollensteiner or Carrol-Childers. Hollensteiner resumed her life immediately; Carrol-Childers spent 100 days isolated to build up her strength.

A year later, both Hollensteiner and Carrol-Childers indicated to DKMS that they wanted to know more about each other. Carrol-Childers was preparing for a trip to Germany and thought she might find her donor there. A lot of stem cell donations come from Europe, and Carrol-Childers wanted to know more about the woman who saved her life.

“I had been thinking about her the whole time when I was in the hospital,” she said.

But Hollensteiner was closer to home than she thought. When Hollensteiner received Carrol-Childers’s name, the first thing she did was go to Facebook, where she immediately saw a photo of Carrol-Childers completing a 5K about 120 days post-transplant. Now fully “bawling,” Hollensteiner dug deeper and found a Facebook group where Carrol-Childers had documented her story.

She was struck by the many posts Carrol-Childers had made, begging people to join the stem cell registry. What had been a simple decision for Hollensteiner had truly saved Carrol-Childers’s life.

When Carrol-Childers revealed she was traveling to St. Louis in March 2025, it was a no-brainer that they would meet.

“Meeting her was indescribable,” Hollensteiner said. “It gives me goosebumps even talking about it. It’s just hard to explain the feeling of knowing that she’s alive because of the technology and the match and me going on that registry over ten years ago and forgetting about it. I was able to save this lady’s life.”

The two still keep in touch. They have a close relationship, and they work together to urge others to join the stem cell registry.

“It saves lives,” Carrol-Childers said, adding, “I give God all the glory. He heals me and He walked beside me, kept me sane, kept me from being depressed. I really never was depressed during this whole process because I knew that if I can beat breast cancer, then I can turn around and beat blood cancer, too.”

Thanks to a miracle, she did.

For more information about stem cell donation, visit the official DKMS website.

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