{"id":4799,"date":"2018-12-12T11:48:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T16:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=4799"},"modified":"2018-12-12T11:55:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T16:55:56","slug":"youll-always-be-my-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/youll-always-be-my-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019ll Always Be My Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"pr<\/a>
It’s all about saving lives!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be silly,\u201d said his wife.\u201d Just because your friend has leukemia<\/strong>, doesn\u2019t mean you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re being absurd,\u201d said his neighbor. \u201cSoon you\u2019ll think that every sneeze is leukemia<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex had been feeling very weak and just made an appointment to see his doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you need is a good vacation, not an exhausting two-hour wait in a doctor\u2019s office,\u201d said his daughter.<\/p>\n

Alex hoped they were right.\u00a0 He was only 53. But he had a feeling\u2026Sometimes you just know\u2026<\/p>\n

And so the appointment was kept. Blood tests were done. The doctor\u2019s face took on a very serious mien. They were all wrong. And Alex was\u2026right. Leukemia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The family was suddenly thrust into a world that was not their own. A world of chemo<\/strong>\u2026 and hospitals\u2026and people dying. Alex had a family. Two children. He was still young. He had plans.\u00a0 Plans for the future.\u00a0 But the chemo<\/strong> was not working.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"helping-hands<\/a>
Will a genetic match be found?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYour best chance is a bone marrow transplant<\/strong>,\u201d his doctor said at a family meeting. Everyone should be tested. Lets pray that we find a genetic match<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The family rallied and each one adjusted his schedule and came to be tested, secretly hoping that he\u2019d be the one to save Alex. But one after the other the answer was negative. No. No. No.\u00a0 And then there was no one left. That\u2019s when Despair took up permanent residence in their home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still hope,\u201d the doctor tried to speak encouragingly. \u201cYou\u2019re Jewish<\/strong>. Lets try Ezer Mizion. It\u2019s the largest Jewish registry<\/strong> in the world with close to a million possibilities. Hopefully one of those registrants will be a good match.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The family was despondent.\u00a0 Relatives no and a stranger yes? They didn\u2019t have much hope.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pr<\/a>
Stem cell transplant being prepared to save Alex’s life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They didn\u2019t know about Shlomo. He was a newly married American young man of 25 learning in the Mirrer Yeshiva. There had been a drive to save the life of a young child and one of the stations was right outside the yeshiva. Many of the young men registered. Their info remains on the database for decades. And so the computer buzzed and chirped and finally settled on a line beginning with \u201cFirst Name: Shlomo<\/em>\u201d. It was a 10 out of 10 match. Very unusual.\u00a0 Perfect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nine years later. Alex is 62, living in Holon, a machine programmer for the IDF and doing fine. He and Shlomo met for the first time in Shlomo\u2019s home. It was a major event with the wives of Alex and Shlomo and Shlomo\u2019s parents joining together for a heartfelt get-together filled with gratitude to G-d who had brought them together .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re the hero I\u2019ve been dreaming of meeting!\u201d Alex beamed as he hugged the man he had waited nine years to meet. \u201cHero?\u201d Shlomo brushed off the accolade. \u201cIt was my pleasure, and it wasn\u2019t painful at all \u2014 at most, a bit of discomfort during the preliminary injections.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was heartwarming to see the two men, from such different worlds \u2014 one, a Russian-born 62 year-old, and the other, a Chareidi Kollel scholar and now a\u00a0 father of six \u2014 joined in a unique bond of brotherhood and mutual affection. \u201cThank you! You\u2019ll always be my hero!\u201d Alex insisted.<\/p>\n

Ezer Mizion has saved over 3000 lives, 307 in 2017alone. It is you, our generous contributors around the globe who have sponsored the genetic testing, that have made it possible.\u00a0 Alex, Shlomo and you. All of us joining together across the ocean in a virtual loving embrace\u2026a Triangle of Life.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDon\u2019t be silly,\u201d said his wife.\u201d Just because your friend has leukemia, doesn\u2019t mean you do.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re being absurd,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[756,202,762,9,897,37],"class_list":["post-4799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bone-marrow-registry","tag-bone-marrow-transplant","tag-chemo","tag-genetic-match","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-registry","tag-leukemia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4804,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions\/4804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}