How a Long Beach man saved a stranger’s life

In February 2021, Julius Wolfe came down with a fever, and small red spots, called petechiae, appeared on his legs. His mother, Tabitha Nilson, took him to an emergency room to make sure he didn’t have Covid-19 or some sort of allergic reaction. Blood tests confirmed that he didn’t have a viral disorder.

Later that day, Julius, a 14-year-old resident of Stanwood, Washington, picked up a friend with his mother and went to church. Just minutes later, his mother and stepfather got a call, drove back to the church, told Julius they had to leave and packed him and his friend into their car.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Julius recalled. “My friend had to be dropped off immediately at their house. Then we arrived at the hospital and I was rushed to the emergency room. Then I was told that I had cancer. And it was not a good feeling.”

He was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

Two and a half years later, Julius is a survivor of the disease, thanks to a 24-year-old Long Beach man who donated his bone marrow.

Alex Kremins grew up in New Rochelle, and enrolled in the University of Michigan’s business school after high school. Kremins is Jewish, and after his freshman year, he spent a gap year — in his case, a “birthright” year — in Tel Aviv, Israel, and also traveled to Europe and Asia.

“Part of the reason why I chose to make that decision is that, while Michigan was a great experience, I kind of felt like something was lacking meaning and fulfillment,” he said.

When Kremins returned after his year in Israel, he became more religiously observant and curious about Orthodox life. Since then he has lived a more observant life, marking Shabbat every week, eating kosher and praying three times a day. He is a co-founder of Ember, a brand of energy gummy, and also works for Ramp, a corporate card and finance automation platform.

As he became more religiously active, Kremins said, he began focusing on ways that he could contribute to society. That played a major role in his decision to help a stranger, who turned out to be Julius.

While in Israel, Kremins was added to the registry for Gift of Life, a nonprofit bone marrow and blood stem cell registry based in Boca Raton, Florida. He also enlisted in the organization’s Campus Ambassador Program, which focuses on recruiting other young donors.

“I always knew that if I was a match for someone, I would do it, no questions asked,” Kremins said. “I just took a long time to find a match. I was lucky, because a lot of people posted on the registry never find a match on the donor side.”

After he was matched with Julius, the bone marrow transplant took place in July 2021, about five months after Julius’s diagnosis, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Nilson said that the process before the transplant was the most punishing for her son, who had to undergo chemotherapy and radiation to make sure his body wouldn’t reject the donor marrow.

“He was getting daily blood and platelet transfusions, but unfortunately, he had allergic reactions to several of the platelet ones,” his mother recounted. “His temperature would go so high up that the hospital’s thermometers couldn’t even track them. He would have these really bad hot and cold shivers. We tried to put as many as seven heating blankets on him. I was trying to hold him and he was just freezing and shaking.”

Julius contracted mucositis as well, a common side effect of chemotherapy and radiation that left his throat and mouth sore and inflamed.

After the transplant, his battle wasn’t done. He developed graft-versus-host disease, a disorder in which the transplanted cells recognize the host’s — Julius’s — body as foreign, and attack other cells. But he got through it, and went home 100 days after the transplant, where he continued to recover.

“I had to build all my muscles back, because I was in a bed pretty much every day,” Julius said. “My immune system was really bad in the beginning, so I couldn’t really do anything.”

According to Gift of Life guidelines, a recipient cannot contact a donor until a year after the transplant. Last July, when Julius and his mother were asked if they wanted to meet Kremins, both emphatically said yes. The meeting was postponed a few times, but they finally met at the Gift of Life Marrow Registry Gala at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan on June 8, where both Julius and Kremins were honored.

“By the time the gala rolled along, I was ready and I was excited,” Kremins said of meeting Julius. “From my point of view, it was a long time coming. I was constantly reaching out to the Gift of Life after I donated, asking if there were any updates.”

Julius was also excited, although also a little nervous. “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect. At least from the looks of him,” he added of Kremins, “he seemed like a good person. I was very happy.”

Alex and Julius chatted it up at the event, joked around a little, and spent time with each other outside, during the fireworks at the end of the night. It was a special night, Kremins said, one of the greatest experiences of his life.

“The donors are celebrated, which is obviously important, but I always felt like the true heroes in the story are the recipients,” he said. “They’re the people who are going through these terrible diagnoses and are able to persevere. It’s always given me a lot of courage, personally.”

Alex and Julius continue to stay in touch, as do their mothers, who follow each other and talk on Facebook. Julius says he plans to get back to his favorite activities, which include swimming, reading and acting. He was also planning to send Alex pictures from a recent hunting trip.