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PrintGifts of life through organ donations
Tulsans share stories of how their life-saving gifts resulted in lasting relationships with the people who received them.
While a freshman in college, Richard Bolusky signed up to be a donor for the national bone marrow registry. He didn’t think much of it, and as the years went by, he eventually forgot about his pledge.
But more than a decade later, when his name came up in the registry as a match, Bolusky helped save the life of someone he had never met.
In 2002, Eric Strom found out he was suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The leukemia transformed, and in 2005, Strom, 63, was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. This led to three different courses of chemotherapy before Strom stopped responding to the treatment. A transplant was the only option, doctors told him.
“By late 2007, I was really told there was nothing to do unless you consider a bone marrow transplant,” says Strom, who lives in a suburb of Los Angeles with his wife.
A search in the bone marrow registry located Bolusky, a Tulsan, who, like Strom, is Jewish and of eastern European descent. The similar backgrounds increased the chance that the two would be a perfect match.
Bolusky agreed to provide marrow, a somewhat painful procedure during which marrow is removed from the donor through several puncture points and infused into the recipient. Bolusky says he was sore for a few days following the procedure, feeling as though he had worked out more than he should have.
In May 2008, the procedure was completed, but both men knew very little about each other until a year later, when the National Bone Marrow Donors Program, which facilitated the donation, released information about each.
It was at that point that Strom invited Bolusky, 32, and his wife, Emily, to California to meet him and his family, and celebrate the one-year mark of the transplant.
“It was pretty amazing to meet the person and his family,” Bolusky says.
The party was not only a celebration but also a chance to encourage people to sign up for the bone marrow registry. About 150 people signed up that day.
The party was the start of Strom’s foundation, Marrow Miracles, which encourages people to sign up for the registry and hosts drives at various locations such as college campuses.
“It was great to know he was doing well but also great to know he’s helping out,” Bolusky says of Strom.
Since their meeting, Bolusky and Strom have become good friends, e-mailing and calling each other regularly.
“There’s a really strong bond and friendship there,” Bolusky says.
Bolusky says he was especially moved when he noticed that a picture of him and his family he had e-mailed to Strom was sitting on Strom’s mantel, right next to other family pictures.
“It was really touching,” Bolusky says.
Strom, who just returned from a trip to Antarctica with his wife — a trip that had been planned for years but was put on hold when he became weaker — is now cancer-free and says he has Bolusky to thank for it.
“You find somebody by chance,” he says. “You find somebody who does this out of great compassion.”
Like Strom, Charles Scott, 57, says his donor gave him the gift of life. Scott’s donor, however, was a little closer to home.
When Sarah Scott’s husband, Chip, told her his father needed a kidney, she decided to get tested. One of Charles’ kidneys was diseased and gradually failing him. He had been on dialysis for a year and a half while family members underwent testing to determine whether they were matches. Unfortunately, none of his blood relatives matched. Then, Sarah tried.
After a few tests, doctors told Sarah she was a match, an announcement that brought up many emotions for the family.
“It was quite a thrill. We had a good day,” Charles says, noting that Sarah had watched the disappointment when other family members were unable to donate.
The surgery took place in June 2009, six months after the announcement. It was around the same time as Father’s Day and Charles’ birthday, he notes.
“I told her this wasn’t just a birthday gift or a Father’s Day gift; it was life,” Charles says.
Sarah, 30, hadn’t been Charles’ daughter-in-law for long when she made the decision to begin the tests, he says.
“Needless to say, it brought us a lot closer,” he says.
Sarah says the decision to donate was simple.
“I kind of look at it like, if you knew someone needed food, why not?” she says. “If I could help anyone again, I would. It was one of the easiest decisions I’d ever made. I’m the same as I was before.”
Charles has had to return to the hospital once since the transplant, mainly because his immune system is weak, he says. But, he adds, his doctors have been surprised by how well he has been doing.
Sarah can largely be thanked for that.
“You always wish there was a way to give something back,” Charles says. “It’s just a tremendous gift.”
How difficult is finding a bone marrow donor?
In 30 percent of cases, a sibling is a perfect match and able to donate. For those without a matching sibling, locating a donor can be even more difficult. Plaintiffs in a California lawsuit that is currently under way want bone marrow donors to be compensated for their donation, in hopes of getting more people to register. Right now, compensating donors would be a violation of the National Organ Transplant Act, which bans buying donor organs.
Organ donation and transplant basics
- Donations can take place while the donor is alive or after the donor has died.
- Living donors can donate one of their two kidneys, one of two lobes of their liver, a lung, part of their pancreas or part of their intestines.
- Tissues that the living can donate include blood, marrow, blood stem cells and umbilical cord blood.
- People of all ages may donate; the condition of the organ is more important than the age of the donor.
- A heart can also be transplanted. A suitable donor is a young to middle-aged person who has been declared brain dead based on standard criteria and whose heart still works well.
- As of February 2010, 105,611 were on the waiting list for an organ.
- From January to November 2009, 26,081 transplants took place.
Source: OrganDonor.gov, www.americanheart.org
