Happy Birth Day

Eric's mother, Joyce Olson, passed away almost a year ago.  She was an amazing woman.  I don't have room to list all of her qualities, but one that was very important to me was her generosity.  From the moment I met her she welcomed me into her home, her family, her life.  I never felt like an outsider, or even an in-law, but was always treated as a daughter.  Joyce had the ability to make everyone feel comfortable because she was so generous with her time, her attention, her love.

Eric is one of eight siblings.  One sibling has had cancer and was ineligible to be a stem cell donor for Eric.  Five were tested at LDS hospital within a few days of each other, and it was assumed that several would be partial matches.  With a partial match they could manipulate the blood to make it compatible with Eric's blood.  Not the best solution, but a manipulated partial match is better than no match.  To everyone's surprise none of the five were even close to being partial matches.  That left Debbie, who was out of state and having a hard time getting her cheek swab accepted by the BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) clinic because of some bureaucratic mix ups.  They finally received her swab and were shocked to find out she was a perfect match.  So Eric isn't even close to partially matching five of his siblings, but is a perfect match with one sibling.

The interesting thing about Debbie is that of the five daughters of Joyce Olson, she is the only one who bears her name.  Debra Joyce.  And Debbie is just like her namesake in her generosity.  Debbie has a million and one wonderful things that she does to help others, but she took a break from them all so that she could be Eric's stem cell donor.  It has been expensive, time consuming, and hard on her physically.  And yet Debbie has cheerfully gone through a very tough few days and tried to laugh it off to make us feel better about it.  She doesn't want us to feel bad about how hard it has been on her or know how much it has inconvenienced her.

The BMT unit calls today, the day Eric received Debbie's stem cells, "Day 0".  They also call it the "second birth day" for stem cell recipients.  That is because it is the day they have another chance at life.  Almost 60 years ago Joyce Olson gave birth to Eric.  And today her daughter, Debra Joyce, gave Eric his second chance.  Giving birth is hard, something to be endured through the pain, but with the promise of a great reward afterward.  Eric and I are so grateful for the generosity of the women in the Olson family who have now given him two opportunities to live.