Meeting My Perfect Match

I was lucky enough to meet the woman that saved my life. A total stranger, giving me the selfless gift of a second chance at life. In my previous post, I discussed what it was like to find a donor. Now, I’ll talk about what an incredible experience it was to meet her. 

Two years after my bone marrow transplant, my in-laws were planning a trip to Germany. Coincidentally, this trip had nothing to do with my donor. My father-in-law had been stationed near Frankfurt with the Army when my wife and her twin sister were babies, and my in-laws wanted to take the whole family back to the area to show them where they spent part of their childhood.

Luckily, they were kind enough to invite me along.

Meanwhile, I had been waiting to find out if I could receive my bone marrow donor’s contact information. I wanted to say thank you to the woman that saved my life. Unfortunately, due to privacy agreements and depending on where exactly the marrow was donated, there are loads of hoops to jump through to make this happen, even if both parties agree to share the information with one another.

So, in this case, it took two years to exchange names.

I still remember exactly where I was. My wife and I were in a Wahlburgers restaurant in Boston getting dinner before a Zac Brown Band concert when I opened the email. I was in awe. The stranger behind the marrow finally had a name.

So naturally, the first thing that I did was look her up on Facebook. Originally, I had written her an email, but it was not able to go through for whatever reason, so I sent a new message through Facebook Messenger. I had thought about what it would be like to put a face to my donor for two years. I had thought about how I would thank her for just as long.

In my first message to her, I explained who I was, and that I am healthy today because of her. Saying thank you just didn’t feel like it had enough weight. So I told her how I had recently graduated college because of her. I was still able to hug my family because of her.

 I was alive because of her.

She is, and will always be, my hero.

She responded within a couple of hours. She was just as ecstatic to put a name and face to the person on the other end of the marrow as I was.

Now keep in mind my trip to Germany was a week away. Now I certainly couldn’t just ask her to meet up after sharing one message each on Facebook, could I? That would be way too up-front to meet a total stranger that quickly.

But then again, how could I not ask her?

So that’s exactly what I did. My second message to her was explaining that I would be in Germany in a week and would love to meet her, and was wondering if she would like to meet me as well. I apologized to her for the short notice, but didn’t want to let this opportunity pass without asking.

Long story short, she said yes and I was on top of the world. We decided on a time and place to meet once I was in the country.

Fast forward one week later to Germany…

This is the part of the experience that I have no idea how to put into words. How do you describe seeing someone that saved your life? 

The whole ride over I was thinking of things to say. What the heck do you say to someone in this situation?

Well, none of the brainstorming ended up mattering anyway. I walked up her driveway, went into a power walk when I saw her (knowing what she looked like from Facebook), and every single thing that I thought to say left my brain. I wrapped my arms around her and broke down. And she did too. There are no words to describe that feeling. It’s an indescribable bond that has me tearing up even as I’m writing this. 

Every emotion I had felt over the past two years just flooded through me. All of the pain, the suffering, the hope, the faith, the triumph — I was wrapping my arms around the reason I was able to fight. The reason I was able to win.

No one forced her to do it. No one forced her to donate. She just did it. She just saved me. Seeing her was borderline angelic. A miracle. It made me feel safe. Like I was hugging my very own guardian angel.

And I don’t know if everyone out there reading this believes in God, but I do. And I know that He had a hand in putting us together at the right place at the right time.

I’m not sure at all where I’d be right now without her — maybe I would have been fine with a plan B treatment, or maybe I’d still be dealing with side effects from a different donor’s bone marrow that wasn’t as perfect of a match. Or maybe my treatment plan would have changed entirely; I have no idea.

All I know is that I am alive and well because of her. A total stranger. One human being helping another, just because she could. There was no reward. There was no personal gain. She donated because she wanted to save a life, and that’s exactly what she did. And for that, I am forever grateful.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. If you haven’t already and are able to, please join the bone marrow registry, and encourage your friends and family to as well. There might very well be someone out that needs your help. Someone that will be as grateful to you as I am for my donor. And it is so simple to join. And while every ethnicity needs more donors, those with minority heritages in particular have alarmingly low match rates.

In the U.S., Be The Match is a fantastic option. A kit will be sent to you asking for a simple cheek swab, a quick return, and you’re in. For other areas of the world, a quick Google search will find you a place to sign up.

As always guys, please feel free to reach out to me on my contact page if you have any questions, tips of your own, topics you would like to see covered, or just feel like chatting to someone that’s been through it. I am always here for you.

-Alex

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Featured image is one of my own!