Giving of himself to save a life

Last June, Randy Eckers, a longtime Oceanside resident, received a phone call that he never really expected — a complete stranger had leukemia and Eckers was a preliminary match for a bone marrow transplant.

Eckers was on the bone marrow registry because, 12 years earlier, his father, Jerry, was diagnosed with leukemia. His entire family had their blood tested to see if they were donors for Jerry, but none of them were.

“We had run a bone marrow drive in Oceanside in School 5 and it was the second-largest bone marrow drive in New York State,” said Elaine Eckers, Randy’s mother and a kindergarten teacher at School 6. “And 18 months later we found a donor through the registry.”

Unfortunately, even though he received a transplant, Jerry Eckers still died due to his illness.

But it was because of his father’s illness that Randy was on the donor registry and received the phone call. Randy underwent testing and found out that he was a perfect match for Michael Wiesenthal, a 50-year-old clothing retailer from Texas.

Eckers underwent a slew of tests to see if his marrow was compatible with Wiesenthal — who he didn’t know at the time — and to see if he was physically able to give marrow.

“I felt very proud, and I’m sure [my father] would be happy to know something good came out of him being sick,” Eckers said. “I never would have been on the registry — I would have never even known to go on the registry — had it not been for the fact that he was sick. That’s one of the things that me and the donor spoke about at length afterwards. I mean, he wouldn’t be alive right now if it weren’t for that.”

Eckers turned out to be a perfect match for Wiesenthal and gladly donated his marrow. However, the two didn’t meet, and didn’t even know who the other was. The National Bone Marrow Donor Program, which runs the registry, has a policy of keeping the donor and recipient anonymous to one another for a year after the donation in case there is a complication with the transplant. Eckers and Wiesenthal wrote letters to each other, through local blood donation centers, but they were anonymous and vague. But on June 10, 2010, the day the anonymity ban was lifted, Wiesenthal called Eckers.

“On the one-year anniversary, he called me up and introduced himself and we spoke at length that day,” said Eckers. “And we speak and e-mail and text all the time now.”

The two have been in pretty constant contact since, but still hadn’t met in person. That is, until a benefit concert hosted by the Lauri Strauss Leukemia Foundation at Lincoln Center on Oct. 25. Eckers was being honored as the Donor of the Year, and they flew in Wiesenthal. The first time the two met on person was on the stage at Lincoln Center in front of hundreds of onlookers.

“It was exciting, for sure,” said Eckers. “I don’t think either of us, after a moment or two, remembered that we were on stage. We had a full conversation as we were standing there.”

“When [Randy’s] recipient met me afterwards,” said Elaine Eckers, “he said, ‘If it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t have happened because you have a son that was willing to do this.’”

Eckers is now fast-friends with his bone marrow recipient. And now he tries to educate people about the misconceptions of donating bone marrow. “Everyone has this misconception about bone marrow donation and how it’s supposed to be the most painful thing in the world,” he said. “It’s not, at all.”

According to Eckers, he was in and out of the hospital in just a few hours after his donation. He was sore for two days and tired for three, but that was all. And getting onto the bone marrow registry only requires a cheek swab.

“People have this awful misconception about [donating marrow],” Eckers said. “People really need bone marrow transplants, and everyday an ordinary person like me can save someone’s life by doing so little. And people don’t get it.”