Chattanooga and Rochester, New York, are separated by 860 miles, but in May 2024, the two cities became intertwined after a stem cell donation from a New York firefighter saved the life of a Sale Creek resident.
“It is such a selfless act to give the gift of life to someone else and give them a second chance at life,” said Crystal Cornelius, the recipient of the stem cell transplant.
In 2019, Cornelius found out she was diagnosed with two types of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after going to City of Hope in Zion, Illinois, for a second opinion. She underwent six rounds of chemo and radiation before receiving PET scans.
At the four-year mark, Cornelius received a positive PET scan, but this time she had Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma and one of her non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had returned.
“It’s like I went into fight mode just almost instantly,” Cornelius said in an interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “I knew we just had to do what I had to do to get through this, and it was, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like I had time to play around when I found out exactly how serious it was.”