Eboni Nash’s mother, Teresa, describes her daughter as “selfless” and “caring.”
“I saw a friend give up her last dollar because she needed it,” she said in a video produced by Be The Match for The National Marrow Donor Program, an organization that facilitates blood stem cell transplants and maintains a donor registry.
It was this dedication that led him to donate bone marrow to a stranger; a decision that potentially saved a life and made for an emotional meeting years later.
According to the organization, Nash first entered a DNA sample into the Be The Match registry in 2020 to determine whether he would be eligible to donate bone marrow to a patient in need.
“Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts has been reporting extensively on bone marrow transplants for the past 11 years, after having a successful transplant herself in 2012. Last year, “GMA” partnered with “Be The Match” as part of “One Match.” We launched the Second Chance series to continue raising awareness about how you can participate in bone marrow donation.
Elsewhere in 2020, Amya Hood, now 16, was diagnosed with T-cell leukemia due to constant bleeding from her nose.
The stress of the COVID-19 pandemic on the American healthcare system has made conditions worse for Hood and his family, whose hospital visits are tightly controlled.
MORE: Mother meets woman who saved son’s life with bone marrow donation
After her diagnosis was repeated a year later, it was revealed that Amya would need a bone marrow transplant.
After looking at her twin sister and mother and finding no match, Be The Match found two potential donors for Amya’s transplant: One of them was Nash. According to Be The Match, “70% of patients do not have a fully matched donor in their family.” The Be The Match registry helps find potential donors in scenarios like Amya’s.
According to Amya’s mother, Nash’s DNA was a perfect “10 to 10” match with Amya.
The bone marrow transplant took place in September 2021. Amya said she was “so happy and grateful.”
Speaking in the video, Nash said, “I guess there’s a purpose for calling me, there’s a purpose for signing me up, and now I’m compliant? Are there millions of people on the record?”
He said he “felt like a superstar” throughout the medical process while working with Be The Match.
Nash detailed the entire donation process on her TikTok account, which has amassed a following and includes a video with more than 509,000 views (which includes a registration code and instructions for signing up to become a donor to Be The Match in its caption). As a similar video with over 700,000 views.
According to Be The Match, Nash helped register nearly 2,000 potential donors through his videos, one of whom was eventually able to donate bone marrow as well. “GMA” first reported earlier this year that Nash and other teens used social media to raise awareness about donor registration.
MORE: Young people use social media to raise awareness of donor registration
In late 2022, a year after Amya’s transplant, Nash received an email from Be The Match informing him that his bone marrow recipient wanted to meet.
“I’m so happy. I’m so excited to meet him,” Nash said in a TikTok video at the time.
Amya’s mother, Carolyn Lee, said the donor was never far from her daughter’s thoughts during her recovery.
“Oh, we always thought about the donor,” he said. “From the very beginning it was ‘When will we find out who the donor is?’ “We thought. This was before the transplant.”
In a text message Amya sent to Nash after the two connected, Nash shared this in a video he wrote: “I know I’m the one fighting, but you’re the reason I ended the fight.”
“Thank you so much,” he wrote, according to Nash. “I’ll live to see my children, I’m getting married and graduating because of you. You did a wonderful thing for a stranger you never met, and that’s amazing.”
The two finally had the chance to meet at The One Forum hosted by Be The Match earlier this month.
“I can just imagine seeing him and how quickly I can get to him without falling and knocking him over,” Nash said ahead of the event in Minneapolis.
Amya shared a similar sentiment. “I’m so excited to meet her and get on stage and give her a big hug and never let her go,” she said.
They both thanked each other when they met on stage at the event.
“This is our purpose, we need to be here,” Nash said, adding that he was “grateful” and “humbled” for the experience.
Amya added, “I am so happy that you are now a part of my life and our journey has begun.”
The post Life-saving transplant meets bone marrow donor and recipient appeared first on goodmorningamerica.com