Patient Stories

A life saved, an unbreakable bond

 

Six-year-old Dominic Stone of Brook Park, Ohio, learned early that sometimes bad things happen to good people. But he’s also learned that not all superheroes wear capes. Some wear tiger suits. In May, for the first time ever, Dominic and his family met Mike Ruetz, the Spartanburg, SC man who had saved Dominic’s life with a marrow transplant four years earlier.

Be The Match Foundation^® and the Hendrick Marrow Program arranged for Dominic and his family to meet the man who saved Dominic’s life. "It was an amazing, amazing experience," said Tina Stone, Dominic’s mother. "When Dominic met Mike there was this instant bond. It was as if Dominic instinctively knew him and knew just how important this man was. It was quite perfect." The meeting included a visit to a children’s museum where Mike indulged his new young friend’s fascination with tigers and posed for a keepsake photo dressed in tigerwear.

Dominic was just eight months old when his parents were told he had Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and would not likely live past the age of 11. The syndrome is an inherited disease of the immune system. A marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant would be Dominic’s best hope for a cure. Like 70 percent of patients in need of a marrow transplant, no one in Dominic’s family was a matched donor. His doctors turned to Be The Match Registry^® to find someone who could save the little boy’s life. The registry is a collection of unrelated people who have offered to donate marrow or cord blood to patients in need.

Before Dominic was even born, Ruetz had joined the registry during a donor drive at his wife’s elementary school. He had nearly forgotten he was on the registry when he received a call that he was a potential match for a patient.

Prior to meeting Ruetz, Dominic pictured his donor as a superhero or an Army man coming to his rescue, Tina Stone said. Dominic realizes now that Mike is not Spiderman or an Army man. He is just a regular guy; a regular guy who saved his life and that makes him all the more powerful. To Ruetz, there is nothing heroic about what he did. My contribution to Dominic’s recovery required very little of me. A little soreness in my lower back, a little time away from work what a small price to pay ... to completely alter Dominic’s future ....To accept such an amazing invitation isn’t heroism. It’s simply wanting not to miss a first-hand experience of Divine intervention.

 

NC family launches Be The Match 5K to honor father, save lives

Ryan Conn, 7, the eldest grandson of Robert L. Johnson crosses the finish line in the race honoring his late grandfather who passed away while waiting for a marrow match and transplant. The RLJ Be The Match 5K raised nearly $6,000 to add more people to the Be The Match Registry of unrelated potential marrow donors.

Paige Layman and her sisters grew up knowing their dad could fix almost anything broken bikes, leaky pipes, you name it. And he instilled that self-reliant, can-do attitude in his daughters.

Several years have passed since his death, but his girls haven’t given up trying to fix the one thing their father could not.

Robert L. Johnson, a U.S. Navy Vietnam veteran, passed away in 2005 from Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. He could not find a donor match for a marrow transplant a treatment that may have saved his life.

On May 30, 2009 his family held the inaugural RLJ Be The Match 5K race in Charlotte, NC to add more people to the Be The Match Registry of unrelated marrow donors. One hundred people turned out, more than 40 joined the national marrow registry, and nearly $6,000 was raised to help even more people join the registry.

There wasn’t a match for Dad, but we can help other patients find their match by signing up more people to the registry. That is something tangible we can do, Layman said.

Every year, 10,000 patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases are in need of a marrow transplant but discover there is no donor match in their family. They rely on the Be The Match Registry of unrelated donors. At nine million members strong, this registry is the largest and most diverse in the world. Each year it helps find donors for more than 5,500 patients, but there are thousands more hoping for a match.

The total cost to add someone to this life-saving registry is about $100. Be The Match Foundation^® works with families, corporations, foundations and community groups to raise money to add new people to the registry. It also assists patients who need help with uninsured transplant costs and supports transplant research.