{"id":4917,"date":"2019-04-03T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=4917"},"modified":"2019-04-15T14:38:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T18:38:52","slug":"in-memory-of-meir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/in-memory-of-meir\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memory of Meir"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A genetic match will save a life!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Needles? Tubes? Oh, no! Not me! Yedidya has been frightened of anything sharper than a safety pin since childhood. But then he met Meir and began to realize that childish fears were just that \u2013 childish. They were overshadowed by more important things. Things like saving someone\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

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Yedidya makes a difficult choice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yedidya and Meir had met when they were children. His family spent three years in New York and their friendship flourished. So much so that, when Yedidya moved back to Israel, they remained in contact until they reached young adulthood. It was then that Yedidya received the news. Meir had leukemia<\/strong> and it didn\u2019t look good. Within months, it was all over.\u00a0\u00a0 Yedidya was devastated. Can such a thing be? Such a young person no longer alive??<\/p>\n

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Cheek swabbing to save a life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Yedidya joined the IDF, he was offered the option of registering, at the same time, with the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Registry<\/strong>. His friends were all lining up. They seemed to have no problem but for Yedidya, it was<\/u> a problem. Blood\u2026 needles\u2026things he\u2019d shied away from since childhood. But the more mature part of him was determined. In the merit of Meir OB’M.\u00a0 He turned. He hesitated. Then resolutely he joined the line. He\u2019d do it. No matter what it involved. The initial test did not involve needles. It was done via a cheek swab<\/strong> but he knew that down the line, if he were found to be a match, it would be more complex.<\/p>\n

In less than a year, he was found to be a genetic match<\/strong> for a woman suffering from leukemia<\/strong> and was asked to be a bone marrow donor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Despite Yedidya\u2019s long-standing phobia of being hooked up to tubes, he didn\u2019t hesitate for a second. The chance to save a life<\/strong> was not to be passed up. Yedidya describes the process: \u201cMy mother accompanied me to the stem cell donation<\/strong>. It wasn\u2019t painful, but it was tiring. There\u2019s no reason to be nervous of a bone marrow donation<\/strong>; it\u2019s a fairly simple process and I was soon able to return to my normal routine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A small bag of life!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yedidya hopes that he will get to meet the woman whose life he saved. Legally, they are not allowed to meet until at least a year. If all goes well, the patient can request a meeting, usually a highly emotional encounter as patient, spouse, parents, children see what they had, up until now, known only as a small bag of stem cells<\/strong>. Now, standing before them would be a person who put his work and family life on hold, traveled long distances, underwent discomforts \u2013 all for a stranger he had never met.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Although Yedidya understands that she may not feel emotionally ready for a meeting, he has high hopes that someday he will be able to see the impact he has had on \u2018his\u2019 patient and on her family… in memory of Meir.<\/p>\n

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Needles? Tubes? Oh, no! Not me! Yedidya has been frightened of anything sharper than a safety pin since childhood. But […]<\/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":[1217,914,741,778,762,37,757,896,193],"class_list":["post-4917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bone-marrow-registry","tag-bone-marrow-donation","tag-bone-marrow-donor","tag-bone-marrow-registry","tag-cheek-swab","tag-genetic-match","tag-leukemia","tag-save-a-life","tag-stem-cell-donation","tag-stem-cells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4917"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4932,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917\/revisions\/4932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}