May, 1996
Five weeks after my marrow donation I received a short handwritten note from Robert. He had just received my initial correspondence sent with the marrow and thanked me for my gift, looked forward to meeting me, and said God bless. A few days later, I received a four page detailed letter describing his diagnosis, his family, his hobbies and he thanked me many more times. His son and daughter-in-law also sent very kind letters. This heartwarming letter made it all worth it for me! He appears to be doing well and we look forward to meeting on April 11, 1997 !

- Mike -

May 24, 1997

Hi Friends,

I received a call on Sat. May 24th from Virginia from the wife of my Bone Marrow recipient Robert. She had been persistently contacting her transplant center weekly to find out my identity so she could contact me. Finally on Saturday morning they released the information to her, over 13 months after the transplant.

She was so nervous she didn't call until late afternoon. She said it was one of the happiest days of her life to finally contact me. She was extremely grateful even though her husband died on Jan. 9th of pneumonia, not the disease the blood center originally told me.

She said he didn't suffer. We talked for about an hour and agreed to send family pictures to each other. We hope to meet in person someday. I sent her a long letter, some pictures and a copy of this donation story because she's not on "the net" and never saw it.

She told me that his hair grew back dark brown and curly, different than it was before. My hair is brown and would be curly, that is, if I ever let it grow. That's a strange phenomenon that I have heard of before between recipients and donors. Some tell me it's because the hair follicles get damaged by the chemo, in fact Robert's wife told me EVERY chemo patient she ever met had hair that returned curly.

Please continue to keep the family in your prayers.

- Mike -