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On a cloudy, cool morning in November, two families and an extended team of clinicians huddled together in a small room off the entrance to VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, exchanging hugs, shedding tears and sharing powerful memories.

While it was gloomy outside, it felt sunny inside because this moment was also accompanied by smiles, laughter and unbridled warmth.

After eight years, two cancer diagnoses and a number of intensive medical procedures, Jeff Lanham was finally meeting the woman whose bone marrow was shipped more than 4,000 miles overseas to keep him alive.

“It’s kind of an overwhelming sensation when you come in contact with a person that you know deep down that they saved your life,” Jeff expressed with admiration. “The appreciation for someone being willing to do that, and for a complete stranger, is just an awesome concept even to grasp.”

From swollen legs to a bone marrow transplant

One morning in 2002, Jeff woke up with painfully swollen legs, from his knees to his ankles. He tried to delay a visit to the doctor until the next day, but his family convinced him to go to the emergency room immediately, where tests soon revealed severely thick blood.

The ER doctor recommended he see a blood specialist, and shortly after he began a treatment program at Virginia Cancer Institute for polycythemia vera, a chronic type of cancer characterized by the presence of too many red blood cells in the bone marrow. It’s an incurable disease that can often be managed effectively for many years.

However, after 13 years of treatment, Jeff’s blood began to rapidly decline. In 2015, his doctor suggested that he make an appointment with John McCarty, M.D., medical director of the Cellular Immunotherapies and Transplant (CIT) Program at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center.

After some additional testing at Massey, it became clear that the polycythemia vera had transitioned into myelofibrosis, a rare type of blood cancer where the accumulation of scar tissue in the bone marrow prevents the adequate production of red blood cells. Jeff was told he would need a bone marrow transplant, in which a person’s unhealthy blood stem cells are entirely replaced with healthy ones through infusion.

“When polycythemia falls into the myelofibrosis picture, it’s a bit harder to cure,” said Massey oncologist Harold Chung, M.D., who was part of Jeff’s care team and retired in early 2025 after treating thousands of patients in his 28 years with the cancer center. “When we saw Jeff initially for his myelofibrosis, we knew that it was in evolution, and that was the reason to push for a transplant.”

A second opinion at another cancer center confirmed this treatment recommendation. His daughter, Grace, was 11 years old at the time, and Jeff had hoped to stay on his current medication until she went off to college, but this goal soon became an impossibility. Jeff chose to undergo a bone marrow transplant at Massey.

“I felt like there was just something different about the folks at Massey in how they seemed to watch out for me,” Jeff said.

Three years of grueling treatment

A fungal infection in his lung in the fall of 2015 prevented Jeff from receiving a bone marrow transplant until January 2016. When the week of his procedure arrived, it was not without added stressors. A large snowstorm loomed over the East Coast, creating anxieties about Jeff’s ability to check in for six inpatient chemotherapy sessions ahead of his official transplantation, as well as uncertainty about the timely delivery of his incoming bone marrow from Europe. Jeff Lanham underwent a successful bone marrow transplant at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2016. (Contributed photo).

However, all appointments went on as scheduled, and Jeff’s transplant was performed successfully. Following his procedure, his spleen—an organ that stores and filters red blood cells and helps the body fight infections—was so enlarged from the polycythemia vera, that his blood counts were not rebounding as expected.

“As my body accepted the transplant and I produced all these new cells, my giant spleen was just kind of gobbling all of that up,” Jeff said.

Jeff was eventually cleared to return to work on a part-time basis in late 2016, at which time he was employed as a regional supervisor of Magistrate Services for the Supreme Court of Virginia. During one particularly stressful day back at the office in May 2017, Jeff felt unwell and experienced a disturbing noise rattling through his head.

“It was a very mechanical noise, kind of like a grinding as if I was in a manufacturing setting. I knew something was really wrong,” Jeff said, as he began to choke back tears. “I just laid down, and when I laid down, I thought that was it for me.”

A telephone call by his wife, Jane, to the CIT staff at Massey kickstarted an immediate drive to the ER at VCU Medical Center. Tests showed that Jeff had experienced a brain bleed brought on by a starkly low platelet count, where irregular spleen function contributed to the hemorrhage. After almost two weeks in VCU’s Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit, Jeff underwent a splenectomy by way of laparotomy, a specialized procedure that involves the surgical removal of the spleen through an incision into the abdominal cavity. Within days, Jeff’s platelet and blood cell counts soared.

“That showed that the bone marrow transplant worked, but it was just that my spleen was not having any part of it,” Jeff said.

Despite multiple procedures with positive outcomes, Jeff's cancer journey was not done yet. During his splenectomy, doctors observed a spot on Jeff’s scalp, which turned out to be melanoma that had spread to his sentinel lymph node.

In November 2017, Jeff received a complete neck dissection at Massey, in which all of the lymph nodes and surrounding tissue in his neck were surgically removed. To make sure that the cancer was completely gone, his oncologist, Andrew Poklepovic, M.D., recommended 20 days of radiation therapy with Alfredo Urdaneta, M.D., followed by a year of immunotherapy, which Jeff completed in 2018.

After all his treatments, Jeff estimates he lost about 85 pounds. He started feeling much better and began to focus more deliberately on his health and well-being, admitting that radiation-induced pain from swallowing helped him not eat as much initially.

“I still eat fast food, but I just don’t eat it five times a week like I used to, you know?” Jeff said, as the room joined in laughter. “By making some lifestyle changes, I just feel better.”

Jeff said he has received additional benefit from two endoscopies, performed recently by Sasha Mangray, M.D., a gastroenterologist at VCU Health.

Meeting his donor for the first time eight years later

In the U.S., patients have to wait one year following their bone marrow transplant before requesting direct contact with their donor, but other countries’ waiting periods can be longer. Privacy rules and policies are put in place to protect both the transplant recipient and the donor in these instances. Because Jeff lived in the U.S., but his donor lived in Germany, Jeff had to wait two years before being able to directly connect with Anja Jehnes-Inanli. After eight years, two cancer diagnoses and a number of intensive medical procedures, Jeff Lanham finally met Anja Jehnes-Inanli, his donor whose bone marrow was shipped from Germany.

“Shortly after the two-year window was up, Anja and I were introduced through a card. We kind of went from there, and we shared email addresses and started writing to each other,” Jeff smiled. “We’ve swapped dog pictures, sent birthday greetings and things like that.”

Anja, who said there are numerous bone marrow drives widely available in Germany, donated her bone marrow to Jeff in 2016 after only being on the registry for about one year before she received a call.

“[For me], it was just a good thing, and an easy thing, to do,” Anja said. “It’s crazy that this process works over this distance from Germany to Richmond.”

Jeff and Anja had been communicating for six years, but it wasn’t until 2024 that they met in person for the first time. Anja and her family, including her husband Serkan and her son Niklas, had a vacation planned in the U.S. They flew into Washington, D.C., and on their way down to Florida, made a pit stop to stay with Jeff and his family in Richmond for a couple of days.

“I’m so happy,” Anja said, breaking into a smile. “I was very excited and nervous to meet, but it’s been incredible.”

Jeff added: “It’s just really different when you finally meet face-to-face knowing that person has made some kind of life-altering commitment for you.”

For many patients, the last place they want to return is the medical facility where they spent the better part of three years undergoing grueling treatment on a near-daily basis, but for Jeff and his family, it was a welcome reunion.

“We had to show Anja where they brought Jeff to life,” Jane said.

Sitting there in a room on the ground floor of North Hospital with both families and several members of Jeff’s clinical care team, Chung was emotionally struck by the moment.

“It gives me chills,” Chung said, adding that it’s rare for a transplant recipient to meet their donor, especially one from another country. “I get to meet some of these unselfish donors, and they are there to help somebody else out from the goodness of their hearts. I’ve always been impressed by that.”

Chung said he was thrilled to be able to meet two of Jeff’s biggest heroes, referring to Anja and Grace, who is now 21 years old and just graduated in May 2025 summa cum laude with an English degree from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

“There’s a picture of Grace on our wall when she turned 12 that Jeff brought in,” Chung said. “We were able to celebrate all of her milestones with him.”

While in Richmond together, the two families also went to a VCU men’s basketball game and visited Colonial Williamsburg.

A comprehensive team: ‘That quality of care is really just unbelievable’

Massey established the first bone marrow transplant unit in Virginia in 1988 and remains a national leader in advanced therapies for patients with a variety of blood and bone marrow disorders, providing leading-edge, collaborative and comprehensive care for patients.

“It truly is a tag team of people embracing the concept of ‘who is next up.’ William Clark, M.D., took wonderful care of me when I had one of my infections because my immune system was so beat up,” Jeff said. The families of Jeff Lanham and Anja Jehnes-Inanli met with members of the extended clinical team who cared for Jeff.

Beyond his doctors, Jeff made sure to recognize the entire team of nurses, clinicians and ancillary staff for their monumental role in making sure he was treated with expert care.

“Obviously the doctors deserve a great deal of credit, but it’s the other staff members that fill out the team and make it go. That quality of care is really just unbelievable,” Jeff said.

He emphasized how Sharon Stampley was instrumental in explaining his course of treatment and coordinating all of his appointments, expediting follow-ups after he was told he couldn’t get in for several weeks.

“Sharon actually runs everything around here,” Jeff remarked, looking over at Chung jokingly. “I have never seen someone get things done like her.”

Jane called out Angela Buskey, R.N., for her “marvelous” role in educating and preparing them ahead of Jeff’s treatment. She thanked the team members who offered financial and insurance support services during treatment. Jane even started crying as she talked about the “sweet valet gentleman” outside of North Hospital who offered his help when Jeff was feeling sick one day.

“It’s just the most caring network. We can never say enough about VCU,” Jane said. “It was a family. It really is a family in there.”

Finding the right match

A person who needs a bone marrow transplant is most likely to pair with a donor from a similar ethnic background because inherited genes that regulate an individual’s immune system play a significant role in determining who is a compatible match. Patients often have a family member who is a full match, but that’s not the case for many patients who end up needing bone marrow from an unrelated donor.

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP, formerly Be the Match) is a global nonprofit leader in cell therapy that drives research, treatment and support to cure blood cancer and blood disorders, in partnership with medical institutions and transplant centers like Massey around the world. NMDP plays an essential role in matching many patients who need a bone marrow transplant with unrelated donors through a registry, both nationally and internationally. Jeff was matched to Anja through NMDP.

“Some people could go decades being on the registry before getting a call, and most people don’t get chosen at all,” said Chung, who is an active advocate for NMDP, having spoken at public events on the clinical importance of a large donor pool and assisting with donor drives.

While being treated at Massey, Jeff met an African American man who also needed a bone marrow transplant, but was still waiting for a match, while Jeff had already been matched with Anja.

“There are times, I hate to use the term ‘survivor’s guilt,’ but you do sometimes wonder why they’re able to find a match for some patients, and they were not for other people that I crossed paths with along the way,” Jeff said.

Not all ethnicities have full representation on the registry, posing a challenge for some patients to find a true match.

“That’s one of our goals is to do more in the way of supporting matches for populations and ethnicities that have more difficulty finding a match,” Jane said.

Jeff, who pulled up his jacket with a wide grin to reveal a t-shirt underneath that read “Transplant Tough,” hopes to use his experience to educate others and advocate for people to join the NMDP’s bone marrow donor registry.

In November 2024, VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center announced a new endowed fund, named after Suleika Jaouad and created by the Massey Family Foundation, that will support expanded access to cellular therapies and transplantation to help ensure every patient has the ability to receive the lifesaving care they need.

“Until 30-40 years ago, the medical field maybe had a match for about 30-40% of patients. Now, it’s increased to about 80 or 90%, and we’ve also introduced haploidentical (half-match) transplants, so just about everybody can get a transplant now with a healthy donor,” Chung said.

Learn more about how to join the NMDP donor registry here.

Written by: Blake Belden