‘Thank you for saving my son’ Marrow donor, recipient connect six years later after UIHC match

16.Dec.11

Dearest bone marrow donor,

On September 16, my son received your bone marrow! ... I cry of happiness - at last!

lll

IOWA CITY - With her 20-year-old son isolated in their Denmark home, recovering from a last-ditch marrow transplant to cure acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Liane Staal poured out her soul to someone across the Atlantic Ocean.

An undisclosed savior in the United States.

Rachel Kruse, 39, of Cedar Rapids, had six years earlier registered to donate bone marrow - inspired by a little boy's story in the Quad Cities. When the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics called her in 2011 to report she'd been matched, Kruse said she never reconsidered.

'I said I have to. I have to because I'll always wonder if this person got help,” she said.

After making the donation, Kruse didn't have to wonder long before eventually receiving Staal's anonymous letter - one she wrote Dec. 16, 2011 - in February 2012.

'As a mother, I would say thank you for saving my son,” Staal wrote to the then-unknown donor. 'The whole family is happy for what you have done for us. You are a very special person for this family. We will always be grateful.”

Earlier this week in Chicago, Staal, 54, and her son, Jonas Staal, 25, got the chance to thank Kruse in person.

'The hands were as cold as the Greenland ice,” Liane Staal said about the moments before the meeting. 'When the plane was going down, now is the time. But when we went out, we were hugging each other, it was so nice.”

Per its policy, the donor match network waited two years before sharing names and contact information with Kruse and the Staals. But Thursday, Kruse sat with Staals in the UIHC room where Kruse learned she was a match. They chatted more like family than old friends.

'They are a little related now,” Liane noted.

The UI performed its first bone marrow transplant in 1980. Today, it performs between 30 and 50 a year - depending, largely, on the luck of finding a match. And that can be spotty. Out of 540 registered donors, just one may be matched, according to Colleen Reardon, manager of donor services and the Iowa Marrow Donor Program.

Researchers believe more than 25 million types of bone marrow exist, and some individuals don't have a match.

For Jonas - who was diagnosed with the aggressive form of leukemia at age 19 and was clinging to life in fall 2011 - the chance a donor could save him felt nearly as slim.

He had been told odds of a match were 1 in 18 million. Doctors scoured Germany for a match with no luck. The teen endured several rounds of thrice-a-day chemotherapy, but that failed to deter the disease.

'When he had done that for three months, there was no life,” his mom said Thursday. 'He was not living anymore.”

Health care providers had decided to give him a break, with the realization another round of hard-core chemo could have the same result as doing nothing - death.

'So Rachel came at the right time,” Jonas said.

When doctors told the Staals about the match, they were stunned.

'Mentally, I was so tired in my body. It was hurting. And he said, ‘We got a bone marrow ma'am,'” Liane recalled.

When the marrow arrived, a nurse handed her the box and said, 'This is your responsibility now.”

'And I think, this is now the new life coming,” Liane said.

After 32 days in hospitalized isolation and another 60 days isolated at home, Jonas first went out in public for Christmas. And he felt great.

'After I got out of isolation, I asked my doctor if I could go skiing in France,” he said. 'And he was like, ‘If you're up to it, you can go.'”

Five months after receiving Kruse's marrow on what could have been his deathbed, Jonas was flying down the French Alps - armed with a letter in case of an accident: that he has special blood.

As soon as the two-year period of anonymity passed, Kruse tried to reach out to the young man, but the emails kept bouncing. She tracked him down on Facebook.

'Hello Jonas, I am looking for my bone marrow recipient. You may be him,” she wrote in a Facebook message on Dec. 10, 2014. 'If you are him, I hope your recovery was not bad, and I just want to wish you happy holidays.”

Jonas wrote back - but couldn't chat long.

'You got the right guy,” he said. 'I'm in the middle of packing and going to France snowboarding. So I will write you again when I come home.”

Kruse said she was impressed. And a little surprised.

'Well wow,” she said. 'He's not just living. He's living.”

Today, Jonas is pursuing a career in dentistry. His brother and mother are pursuing jobs in health care.

He now has the same chance as getting cancer as anyone else. And Kruse said she remains on the donor registry.

'It wasn't a big deal. It was six hours of my life. And I had a bruise on my back. And it didn't bother me,” she said. 'People think that it's going to be this big deal, and that's what I remember thinking - I hope more people get on the list.”

To join the Be The Match registry and potentially become a donor, you can sign up at this website.

l Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com