Fighting Spirit 2017

My brother Ben was born September 4th, 1985. We were both baseball players and he tagged along with me everywhere I went. He made the team for Andrew College in Cuthbert, GA and we were all so proud!

Ben always acted like he was bullet proof. He was a freelance cameraman for Realtree and filmed deer, elk and turkey hunts all over the country. He was not scared of anything and he ended up being a lineman for a power company, climbing 150 foot tall electrical towers. I am not sure why but the only guy he was scared of was me. It must be a big brother thing.

At 20 years old he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. An aggressive chemo therapy regimen for three years put the cancer in remission. He was cancer free for three years before the cancer returned. Ben was again started on an intense
chemo therapy regimen.

The only thing that could help him from a reoccurrence would be a stem cell transplant. The doctors checked the family first for a possible match. Since I am the only sibling I was tested. Being a stem cell donor involves a lot more than being related or having the same blood type. The doctors turned to the bone marrow registry through BetheMatch.org. There was not a match for Ben on the registry. I was the only suitable donor but I was an imperfect match. So they harvested some of my bone marrow from my pelvis and put it into my brother through a port – very similar to a blood transfusion. A 100% match from a non-related donor was not available for Ben. That is why its so important to increase the amount people on the registry, especially those of diverse racial and ethnic ancestry.

The transplant was a success! Within 3 months he was producing nothing but my blood cells. His blood type changed to my blood type and Ben continued to be cancer free.
He made it a year before he relapsed a second time. He joined a clinical trial with less than 100 people involved in the administration of a experimental drug. It had very serious side effects and Ben was placed in ICU after experiencing a seizure. It did put him back in remission against all odds. The doctors again searched the registry, which again did not have a match for Ben. He got married and adopted his wife’s son. Ben relapsed again in June 2013. He tried chemo for the final time in Texas. The chemo treatments depleted his entire immune system. He died from an infection and complications of leukemia in the hospital on September 11th, 2013, nine days after his twenty eighth birthday.

The first time he went into remission he chose a kanji symbol “Fighting Spirit” to have tattooed on his arm- and the rest of his life he embodied that to the fullest.  I’ve got the symbol for “Perseverance.” I love my brother Ben, I never thought that there would be any greater purpose to this ordeal but it warms my heart to know that getting his story out there can save lives if we can get more people to register with bethematch.org.  Please help save a life and register. Let’s show the world our Fighting Spirit.”