{"id":6433,"date":"2022-07-20T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=6433"},"modified":"2022-10-07T12:28:53","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T16:28:53","slug":"absolutely-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/absolutely-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Absolutely Not!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Another success story at Ezer Mizion International Bone Marrow Registry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely not!\u201d he said. Again and again. Each time the subject was brought up.  \u201cNo! A thousand percent NO, NO, NO!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s my son. Stubborn as they come. I can\u2019t say I blame him. After all, he\u2019s a teenager and just wants to be like everyone else. He went through a lot, that son of mine. For a while it was touch and go and, at his age, there was no way to hide the situation from him.  That\u2019s a pretty scary package for a young boy of eleven to handle. Now he just wanted to be normal. Like his friends. He didn\u2019t want anyone to google his name and suddenly be confronted with a bald replica of his younger self. He wanted to erase that nightmare from his history. Click \u2018delete\u2019 and it never happened. A meeting with his donor? Absolutely not! And there\u2019d be cameras. He\u2019d make it on the internet. There for everyone to see. There for him<\/em> to see. A massive to-do in technicolor, highlighting what he would only want to expunge from his psyche. And so the answer was NO!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

 A stem cell transplant had been his last chance to survive and, for a long time, there was no matching donor on the horizon.  It was only through Ezer Mizion that a DNA match was finally found. As parents, we wanted the opportunity to say thank you to this amazing person who gave his all to help someone he didn\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we make sure there are no video cameras? No brouhaha. Just a quiet visit between us and him…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOk,\u201d he answered knowing that sooner or later he\u2019d have to give in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We set a date, bought gifts, among them a drawing of a leopard that my son had printed on canvas, and we even finished with a family bout of Corona a week before. We were ready. But now it was our turn to be nervous. Holding tight to our package of gifts (Were we holding them or were they holding us up?), we met at Ezer Mizion\u2019s Oranit, the Cancer Support building where we all spent so many hours. How many times did we bring our other kids here just to relax at the Petting Zoo and such. And now it was over. We were in the same building but in such a different place. Here we were waiting to meet the young man who saved our son\u2019s life. All we knew about this donor is that his name was Avi, he\u2019d been living in recent years in Mexico, and that the sample that he gave at the Induction Center a decade ago had been genetically tested with the funding of Boeing Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, he came in, his parents behind him. Oh, G-d, what a sweet young man. Not that there was any alternative, yes? There were no ceremonial gestures or speeches. Avi and my son immediately embraced, and so did we. We almost managed not to cry. Because what do you say to someone who saved your child\u2019s life? \u201cThank you\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We exchanged all kinds of new trivia details. You also like to eat candy? You also get mosquito bites without a stop?\u201d My son said to him, \u201cListen. You know that if I commit a murder and they find my blood at the scene of the crime, they\u2019ll come to you?\u201d And Avi answered, \u201cBut what about fingerprints?\u201d and my son laughed. \u201cWhat do you think I am, an amateur?\u201d We sat there for almost three hours. We saw the films and talked about our lives. At some point, near the end, my son said to Avi, with the embarrassed smile of a teenager who doesn\u2019t know how but desperately wants to express his real feelings , \u201cThanks for saving me.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAbsolutely not!\u201d he said. Again and again. Each time the subject was brought up.  \u201cNo! A thousand percent NO, NO, […]<\/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":[741,756,4,763,896,922],"class_list":["post-6433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bone-marrow-registry","tag-bone-marrow-registry","tag-bone-marrow-transplant","tag-cancer","tag-dna-match","tag-stem-cell-donation","tag-stem-cell-transplant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6433","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=6433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6436,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6433\/revisions\/6436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}