When Michael Cizek had his cheek swabbed outside Library West in November 2015, he didn’t think anything of it.
“I didn’t really know what I was signing up for,” the 22-year-old said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get a phone call.”
But about six months after joining the bone marrow registry that day on campus, he did receive a phone call. He was a match.
After some further blood testing on the 10 necessary chromosomes to identify a match, the UF marketing senior traveled to Washington, D.C., in June 2016 to donate bone marrow to a man he’d never met.
Until Thursday, they didn’t know each other’s name. The two met for the first time at the Nov. 9 X Ambassadors concert on Flavet Field. Jeffery Turner, the recipient of Cizek’s donation, embraced the man to whom he’s now bonded forever, Turner said.
“You try to think of what you’re going to say to somebody that saved your life,” Turner said. “That’s a hard thing to come up with.”
The 54-year-old settled on the only words that seemed appropriate: “Thank you.”
Cizek said the decision to donate his bone marrow was an easy one.
“It was an opportunity to save someone’s life, and I feel like I don’t get too many of those opportunities,” he said.
Turner was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, in February 2015, he said. The disease is deadly and progresses rapidly, said Dr. John Wingard, the director of the bone marrow transplant program at UF Health Shands Hospital.
“It’s an extraordinary act of generosity of that donor to step forward and be a donor,” he said, “to give this person a second chance for life.”
Turner and Cizek plan to stay in touch.
“It’s like I told Michael, you’re part of me now,” Turner said. “We’ll be friends from now on.”
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jgiles@alligator.org
