“I couldn’t digest the fact that life may go on for all those around me but I may not be there. The trick is to know how to keep going, without self-pity and without anger. You want to get away but you can’t. You are the cancer and the cancer is you. You understand at that moment that this is what was decreed for you and there is no place to run. You have no choice but to think positively.”
Seventeen year old Amit Kalmanowitz began, “It was in the middle of 6th grade when I noticed a strange lump in my armpit. At first they thought I had appendicitis but I heard the doctor say those words—the words everyone is scared of.” So began the battle of overcoming the disease—than three times in the course of just five years!
Ten-year-old Yonatan Dor will never forget his 8th birthday. “I had a hacking, dry cough,” he remembers. “I noticed a swollen gland in my neck and showed it to my mom. We went to the doctor and he sent us straight to the emergency room. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but within a few hours, I found myself in a room, hooked up to an IV. It hurt a lot. My parents didn’t want me to have to sleep with the hospital blankets, so they brought me my quilt from home, but I was all worked up. It turned out that I had leukemia. I was really angry that this was my birthday present. I was just a little kid and didn’t really understand.”
Seven-year-old Ilai De Silva’s mother related, “The disease attacked him very aggressively, requiring a bone marrow transplant. There were 11 possible donors. A few days after we found out, I received an urgent call to come to the hospital. I drove all the way with tears blinding my eyes. I didn’t know what to expect. On the way, I got another call from Ezer Mizion. The person on the other end sounded so happy. I just knew it was good news—and it was. She was calling to inform me that they had a donor. Instantly, the tears were transformed into tears of happiness. A donor meant life for my little boy!”
Ilai said, “When we met the donor, my mom screamed ‘thank you’ at least 20 times and then started smothering her with kisses. I remember that we hugged. She was really nice.” Yonatan’s donor gave him chocolate. “But more important, he gave me life. I don’t think there is any greater gift in the world. It’s so scary to think about what would be if he hadn’t registered with Ezer Mizion,” Yonatan said.
Binyamin joined the dialogue at this point and talked about the point when they discovered he had cancer. “My illness began when I was two and a half-years-old. I had a high fever for a few days, and the doctor claimed it was a virus. Well, it wasn’t a virus or the flu or any of the ‘good’ diseases. It turned out that I had leukemia. When I was seven, the disease came back. But now that I have a transplant, I hope it’s gone for good. Today, I’m happy to say, I have gotten past the fear.”
When asked about the hardest moment during the treatments, Binyamin said, “You’d be surprised. You’d think I would be worried about dying but I guess that’s too big a worry to handle, so I focused on a littler worry: how would I handle my hair falling out. They told me it might grow back differently. I hoped I would have straight hair, not curly. It didn’t turn out that way.”
The foursome endured months of intensive treatments in the hospital which kept them out of school for long periods.
“At first it was fantastic. I loved the fact that I didn’t have to do any schoolwork. But as time went by, I began to miss it more and more,” admitted Ilai.
Kalmanowitz said he missed half of 6th grade, a third of 7th, almost all of 8th, and all of 11th grade. “It was a crazy time. But, I’m happy to say, I managed to make up all the work in a snap. The problem was more the social angle. A lot of friends used to come to visit, but still, at the end of the day, you are the one who is left to cope alone with the disease. It was like we could connect up to a point but then I was left alone—the kid with cancer—while they were leading ordinary lives.”
In spite of the boys’ grinning faces, it is clear that the trauma of the illness left its mark.
“You find yourself paranoid, checking all the time for another lump, G-d forbid,” said Amit. “In medical lingo, they talk about needing five years of complete recovery before a person is statistically out of the woods. In my case, the cancer came back two months before the five years were up. You can’t imagine what it feels like to be so close to the finish line and have to start all over again. It’s like some of those games where you’re close to winning then you draw a card that sends you sliding all the way back down. It was crazy!
Yonatan said that he feels like a true survivor. Binyamin said that he learned that he could get through things he would never have thought he could handle. Amit said he has a lot more confidence. “ I was sure I was born into a life of pain and suffering, but somehow, I managed to get back on track. Today I can honestly say that I enjoy life every day anew. You won’t see me getting stuck on trivialities. I learned to enjoy and appreciate the small things.”
Yonaton added, “There is a line in a song by Aviv Gefen—‘It’s not enough to live, you have to be alive.’ You could say that this summarizes everything I believe in today.”
Ilai requests that everyone register as a bone marrow donor, adding, “We’re the lucky ones. There are a lot of kids who are still waiting. I’ve met some of them.”
Dr. Bracha Zisser, director of Ezer Mizion’s bone marrow registry said, “All four boys were cancer patients who were given the gift of life thanks to compassionate people who donated to the registry.” For more info visit www.ezermizion.org.
