Stem cell transplant or bone marrow transplant. What’s the difference?
You’ve probably heard some people say that they’re having a bone marrow transplant and others say they’re having a stem cell transplant, but what’s the difference between those two things? Let’s start with a few definitions. Bone marrow Bone marrow is a spongy substance in the centre of bones that produces blood cells. There are many kinds of […]
Data manager Alia Cibich receives Jazz Pharmaceuticals Award
How do doctors know what treatment is likely to help which patient? Data. And lots of it. Years, no decade after decade of it. While you probably won’t ever see a TV series with the likes of a dreamy Patrick Dempsey playing the role of key data manager, here at Arrow, we think data managers […]
Jackie’s cat saved her life. (Oh, and an allogeneic stem cell transplant.)
A woman with a cat bite walks into a medical centre… No, it’s not the start of a bad joke, but what followed for Jackie was so surreal it felt like it could have been. She had been feeling fatigued and lethargic for a while, but it wasn’t until a routine blood test after she […]
Hardship can happen to anyone
“How are you doing today?” It’s an innocuous question for most of us, something we ask often without really listening to the answer. But hardship can happen to anyone. “I’ll tell you on Tuesday,” was the answer I got when I asked this of Josee. Tuesday is the day Josee and her husband Joseph will […]
A novel intervention in haematology: Chasing Grannies at the 2023 Blood Conference
We are proud to have supported two nurses to attend Blood 2023, a haematology focused conference in Melbourne: Serafina Levak from St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney who received the Shaun Rosen Scholarship and Kylie Sih from Royal Hobart Hospital who received funding through the Professor Geoffrey Driscoll Nursing Scholarship. Both nurses had valuable experiences at […]
International Myeloma Society meeting in Greece
A big part of what we do here at Arrow is help build a strong community of support around bone marrow transplant patients. One of the ways we do that is to help BMT nurses attend conferences where they can learn from and with their colleagues around the world. We recently awarded Babita Khanal from […]
The Allan Frenkel Foundation continue their support of Arrow
The Allan Frenkel Foundation was born in 1997, the year Allan would have been 19. Allan Frenkel is described as joyful and happy young man, the life of the party, and always ready for fun. That’s how Allan’s family and friends remember him. Those fond memories are also tinged with great sadness though, because one […]
Arrow HSANZ PhD Scholarship Awarded – Congratulations Dr Michael Ashby!
Congratulations to Dr Michael Ashby of Alfred Health who has been awarded the Arrow HSANZ PhD Scholarship for 2024 for his research into “Preventing Acute Myeloid Leukaemia relapse following allogeneic stem cell transplant.” About the study: Michael’s PhD project will study methods of preventing relapse of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) after a bone marrow transplant. […]
Where are they now? Catching up with nurse Ide Irwin
Ide Irwin, who has been a nurse on the Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney since 2018, thought she knew a lot about haematology nursing until, that is, she got part way through a Master of Cancer & Haematology Nursing. It was then that she realised how complex and fascinating […]
Back to the Hawkesbury!
After a three-year hiatus due to COVID in 2020 and again in 2021, and then the devastating floods of 2022, it was a pleasure to be able to attend the start of the 2023 Hawkesbury Canoe Classic. And what a fabulous event it was! Hundreds of paddlers, along with their supporting land crew, gathered at […]
Where are they now? We catch up with past Arrow PhD Scholarship recipient Dr Adam Bryant
Since we last met Adam Bryant in 2008, he has come full circle in both his career and his travels of the world. We start at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney It was in 2008 that Adam was awarded an Arrow Hawkesbury Canoe Classic PhD scholarship to help fund his work in molecular biology of leukaemia […]
Today of all days. (The role of a positive mindset.)
“Today of all days, Jen.” It had taken quite a bit of to-and-fro to arrange a time to speak with Des. He’s a busy man: playing golf, catching up with friends, enjoying concerts, and back in full time work after treatment for multiple myeloma. In short, living life to the full. But the day we […]