This is a pretty long story but it is one of inspiration and hope. The Bone Marrow donor in the below story is my brother Bob. I am also in the registry and have had additional testing. The next time they call me it will be to donate. Here is the story and never ever give up hope.
Men share a meal and much more
11/23/01
BY JENNIFER DEL MEDICO
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
One year ago, Alex Bespechny didn't expect to celebrate his next birthday. A rare disease was destroying his bone marrow. Doctors gave him little chance of survival without a transplant.
Bob Kita knew the consequences. Eleven years earlier, his sister-in-law's brother, in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, died without ever finding a matching donor. Kita quickly signed up with a bone marrow registry, vowing he would prevent a death if he could.
He got the chance last November, learning his marrow was a match for someone in need. Kita immediately agreed to undergo invasive surgery to give his marrow away.
Yesterday, almost a year after the transplant, Bespechny and Kita met for the first time and shared Thanksgiving dinner at Kita's home in Manville.
"You can't understand what this means to me," Bespechny, 31, a lawyer, told Kita after the two men embraced.
"See these two?" Bespechny said, pointing to his 3-year-old daughter, Ashley, and his 2-year-old son, Zachary. "They have a papa because of you."
Along with his children, Bespechny brought his wife, Alena, his parents and his in-laws to meet Kita, his wife, Stacey, their three children and their parents.
Though he found out he was Bespechny's donor on Saturday, Kita, 42, had been planning the event for a year.
The night before his surgery, Kita wrote a two-page letter of encouragement to Bespechny -- who at the time he knew only as a 230-pound, 30-year-old male suffering from aplastic anemia, a disease in which the body stops producing red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.
He ended the anonymous note, and forwarded it through the agency that set up the transplant, with an invitation to this year's Thanksgiving dinner.
"I'd like to personally thank you for accepting my bone marrow into your life," wrote Kita, a self-employed disc jockey. "I can say that you are responsible for helping me realize that the small things in life, although important, are still just that -- small things. I have received the best gift of my life by being able to be there for you."
The day of the transplant, Kita checked into Saint Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson.
A doctor inserted a hollow surgical needle, which is used like a large syringe, into the back of Kita's pelvic bone to extract the marrow.
The National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit group that arranges transplants, warns all donors that, as with any surgery, there is some risk involved. Rare complications include infection and reactions to anesthesia or transfusions. Kita suffered no ill effects.
Hours later, the marrow dripped through an intravenous needle into Bespechny, who was waiting at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
"This is my soul brother," Bespechny said yesterday to Kita's father, Stanley, 83. "I wouldn't be alive without him. So, dad, it's a pleasure to meet you."
More than 11,000 people have donated marrow for unrelated patients since the National Marrow Donor Program began in 1987. The organization requires that donors and recipients remain anonymous for one year. About 40 percent of the transplants are unsuccessful, said Kristin Alleborn, coordinator of the River Edge-based HLA Registry Foundation, part of the national organization.
"Sometimes (the transplant) doesn't work out, but at least it gives them hope," Alleborn said. "It gives them something to hold on to. I'm sure Bob and (Alex) are going to be an extended family now."
Bespechny had no choice after drug therapy failed. He said his doctors told him a transplant was his only chance of surviving aplastic anemia, a disease that afflicts fewer than 1,000 people each year in the United States.
Its cause is unknown, though some cases have been linked to exposure to chemicals and radiation.
Three months before the procedure, Bespechny noticed large bruises all over his body. They were his capillaries, bursting underneath his skin and failing to heal. Sores filled with blood covered the lining of his mouth. He was so fatigued he could barely get out of bed.
Meanwhile, Kita was undergoing a series of tests to make sure his marrow was a good match.
"It was very easy for me to remember (being) 30 years old when my daughter was 3 and my son was 6 months old," Kita said. "I just switched roles, and I said, 'This guy has got to make it.' It was a no-brainer."
It also made Kita think of his sister-in-law's brother, Joe Piorkowski, who died of leukemia, leaving a wife and four young children behind.
"This is such an unbelievable story," said Bespechny's wife, Alena, also an attorney. "Thanksgiving . . . it just takes on such a new meaning."
Jennifer Del Medico is a reporter in the Somerset County Bureau. She can be reached at
jdelmedico@starledger.com or (908) 429-9926.
Adam aka Big Dude
