Two adorable twins. Too young to understand numbers and question why the ‘two’ doesn’t match their actual age. When they mature perhaps Mommy will explain that this was a party celebrating another birthday. It had been two years since Yarden. had received her life-saving bone marrow transplant. No family member was a genetic match and her parents had been forced to look elsewhere, somewhere, around the globe, for someone whose DNA matched their precious child. We cannot imagine the tension, the fear, the prayers that filled their home until one morning, the phone rang. “I’m calling from Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Registry. I have wonderful news…” Life hasn’t been easy for the twins. They were born together but have been apart for so much of their life what with Yarden in and out of hospitals. May they now spend the rest of their lives together, enjoying each other’s company in perfect health.
Founded in 1998, Ezer Mizion recently passed its One Million mark with 1,000,000 potential donors in our database anxiously awaiting the call to save a life. Statistically, for every 322 donors, one will be The One – the match for a cancer patient whose sole chance of survival is a transplant.
Since DNA matching is based on ethnicity, prior to the birth of Ezer Mizion’s Registry the chances of a Jewish patient finding a match was miniscule, approximately 8%. Now three quarters of the requests are able to be filled. A supporter who lived through ‘before Ezer Mizion’ writes: Any time I hear about Ezer Mizion I feel so emotional. My parents had a son before 8 other children. Their firstborn was diagnosed with leukemia. Ezer Mizion did not exist back then and sadly, he passed away. When I was watching the most amazing videos I was thinking about my brother whom I didn’t meet in person but only by pictures. Looking at those beautiful children going through illnesses and Ezer Mizion being there for them makes me feel so impressed. I want to wish you all the best and keep up the wonderful work you do for all.”
Last year Ezer Mizion was privileged to found its own Harvesting Center enabling every detail of the transplants to be handled on site with a major focus being on the comfort of the donor and the quick and expedient delivery of that ‘little bag of life’ to the recipient, who may be located in one of 146 countries around the world, in record time.
Every year on World Marrow Donor Day, the World Marrow Donor’s Association has an awards ceremony celebrating the achievements of bone marrow registries around the world. Ezer Mizion was announced as 2019 World Marrow Donor Day Grand Prize Winner for Outstanding Work in Raising Public Awareness and Encouraging People of All Ethnic Sectors to Join the Bone Marrow Registry and to Save Lives. Our constant goal is to continue expanding the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Registry with new donors from multiple ethnic groups to ensure that we can always say, “Yes! We have a match.”
