My Nonprofit Reviews

In an emotional encounter, Mira Chen (47), an Israeli stem cell donor from Haifa, and Dr. Joseph Morad (56), a Jewish physician from New York whose life was saved by her bone marrow donation, met for the first time. Dr. Morad, a father of five, has been fighting for his life for the last ten years, since he was first struck by cancer. Morad's doctors searched desperately in all existing bone marrow registries for a matching bone marrow donor, but a matching donor was not found. They almost gave up hope. Mira Chen's decision to join the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow donor pool during the stem cell donor recruitment drive in 2007 gave Dr. Joseph Morad the precious gift of life. About two months after Chen joined the registry, Morad received the news that an appropriate donor with the long awaited genetic match had been found in the Ezer Mizion registry. Two years ago, the bone marrow transplant took place in New York where Morad was hospitalized. His life was saved. At the moving, greatly anticipated meeting between them, Morad thanked Chen with deep emotion for her donation that saved his life: "The world exists in the merit of people like you. If not for you, I wouldn't be here today. I'm so happy, and I cannot thank you enough for saving my life and for giving me the privilege to go on and to be here for my family." Mira Chen: "My father died of cancer in the blood twelve years ago. Now I feel as if I've closed a circle. We couldn't save my father, but with my bone marrow, I was able to save Joseph. I call upon everyone to come forward and donate bone marrow. It's a simple procedure that saves life. If someone can not join the registry because of age or health limitations, or if someone has already joined but wants to do more for this life-saving project, please sponsor the cost of processing blood samples of people who join the registry as new potential stem cell donors."

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