SWANTON, Ohio — It was in May when Emma Operacz knew something was wrong.
"I was just in pain for a while, pretty much that whole month with like UTI symptoms," Emma said. I didn't really think anything of it since those usually go away."
But they didn't.
It was after months of pain, dozens of visits to the doctor and ER trips that she knew something was severely wrong.
"Just by looking at it, they (the doctors) were like, 'You have lymphoma. It's in your bone marrow," Emma said. "I was like, 'There's no way, that's not in my deck of cards. I'm 21, I'm in college, it's just an infection.'"
However, the news wouldn't get easier for her as her body wasn't responding to the medication.
"Basically, it had spread to my brain and that's when they transferred me to Cleveland," Emma said.
She received numerous rounds of chemotherapy at Cleveland Clinic and after months of fighting, she's now going through remission.
Due to the cancer in her bone marrow, doctors said she'll need a stem-cell transplant.
However, that's something hard to come by, according to Dr. Rolla Abu-Arja, director of blood and marrow transplants at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
"People go on the registry, they provide a swab and they send it out to the national marrow donor program and their information is saved," Abu-Arja said. "If they're found to be a match to someone, then they are called out."
A match, which is also hard to come by.
Even Emma's sister was just a 50% match. The closer to 100%, the better Emma's odds are that her cancer doesn't return.
"We're great that we have our daughter and we will go forward if we have to with her, but a 100% match would be the best outcome," Emma's mother, Jeanette Operacz said.
While a cancer diagnosis would be top of mind for most, Emma said she has larger goals in mind and is ready to return to her normal life.
"I'm literally a semester away from graduating," Emma said. "So that's the first thing on my list, then I'm going back to school to get another degree."
As a senior at Eastern Michigan University, Emma said she wants to return to school by the end of this year and is ready to leave this chapter of sickness behind.
The Operacz family will be hosting a registry recruitment event to help find Emma a 100% match on Oct. 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the National Marrow Donor Program at the Club Salon in Swanton.
Another program will be hosted later on at Eastern Michigan University, with the date and time yet to be announced.