Aug 19, 2026 · 53 min · 13 segments
In this episode of the Talking Blood Cancer podcast, host Kate Arkadieff sits down with Keira Cowan to discuss her lived experience with severe aplastic anaemia. Diagnosed at age 15, just before her…
Keira CowanGuest
Kate ArkadieffHost
Now, as of 15, well, at this point, it would have been closer to your birthday, right? Is that...
So I want to ask, how was your head and your mental health coping at this point? Because I know adults struggle to hear that news and such fast concession and the plan, it just, you're on the roller coaster before you even ask to get beyond it.
I think really, and I think my mum would agree with how she was feeling as well.
I was just kind of like going through the motions, but not going, okay, like this is actually quite severe.
And also it's a disease and obviously similar to many blood diseases and conditions.
And so you don't know whether it's going to be like three months, a year, two years, 10 years, you just have no idea.
And so I really thought it was just going to be a month or like, you know, just you're out sick for like a few weeks of school and go back.
And it wasn't until I had started treatment, even though I realized it was going to be a much longer journey.
And in that time, did they have to talk to you about fertility preservation or anything like that?
It was more of an immunosuppressant, but I had two treatment options and one of them was a bone marrow transplant, which is the preferable option if they can get a sibling donor match.
HLA typing and then that lowers the risk of rejection of the bone marrow transplant but unfortunately my sister wasn't a match and so the next kind of treatment option is a three drug approach to immunosuppression which is the route I took.
And so being, I say, 16 now that you would have turned, did you have to, like, was your treatment an inpatient or was it an outpatient mostly? What were you able to do and juggle to keep the normality of being 16?
Now, as of 15, well, at this point, it would have been closer to your birthday, right? Is that...
So I want to ask, how was your head and your mental health coping at this point? Because I know adults struggle to hear that news and such fast concession and the plan, it just, you're on the roller coaster before you even ask to get beyond it.
I think really, and I think my mum would agree with how she was feeling as well.
I was just kind of like going through the motions, but not going, okay, like this is actually quite severe.
And also it's a disease and obviously similar to many blood diseases and conditions.
And so you don't know whether it's going to be like three months, a year, two years, 10 years, you just have no idea.
And so I really thought it was just going to be a month or like, you know, just you're out sick for like a few weeks of school and go back.
And it wasn't until I had started treatment, even though I realized it was going to be a much longer journey.
And in that time, did they have to talk to you about fertility preservation or anything like that?
It was more of an immunosuppressant, but I had two treatment options and one of them was a bone marrow transplant, which is the preferable option if they can get a sibling donor match.
HLA typing and then that lowers the risk of rejection of the bone marrow transplant but unfortunately my sister wasn't a match and so the next kind of treatment option is a three drug approach to immunosuppression which is the route I took.
And so being, I say, 16 now that you would have turned, did you have to, like, was your treatment an inpatient or was it an outpatient mostly? What were you able to do and juggle to keep the normality of being 16?
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
