Army veteran saves little girl with leukemia

adriana was only four years old when her life was turned upside down she was diagnosed with leukemia and she didn't respond to treatment three years later she's alive and well and today she's gonna meet the man who saved her life she's already behind I'm already bought after specialist Mike laureano completed eight years with the National Guard and a tour of duty in Iraq he enrolled in classes at Wilmington University that was actually gone in class one day and there was a table just kind of set up for me the match at that point in time I knew nothing about the organization prior be the match manages the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world for patients diagnosed with leukemia lymphoma and other diseases a bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be their best our only hope for a cure in my mind I pretty much just thought that if I did happen to match somebody it must've it was meant to be a year later Mike got a voicemail from be the match and it was like hey this is Lee from be the match I just wanted to call you you signed up but our donor registration a year ago you're a potential match for a three year old little girl with leukemia and that was the message so of course I called back immediately I didn't even talk to anybody before I did that you know if you asked if I wanted to move forward and I said yeah Mike went through the entire donation process with only a few details about the little girl whose life he was potentially saving us laws require that donors and recipients have no communication before the transplant day during the first year after transplant it's possible to send cards and letters back and forth as long as it's kept anonymous after the first year post transplant if both donor and recipient agree names and contact information can be shared I woke up one morning two years after the surgery and I had a Facebook message from Adriana's mom was like hey you don't know me but you know if this is you I just want to show you that this is a little girl you saved two years ago and just sent me video pictures all these things about Adriana kind of have her like this bit and it must have been like five no more I was half asleep and I reached over and pushed my weapon hey hey look at this you know I always wanted to meet them [Music] Mike finally got that chance during a cross-country road trip he and his buddy were driving from Delaware to California so they made a stop in Utah to me the little girl whose life he saved that was excited to the entire time but still nervous because I have this hero title you don't know what to expect going in but I was just happy to keep in their person [Music] even though she's said young she knows what she went through and she knows that without this procedure getting rid of the bad stuff inside of her you know she might not be here so I think that's the biggest thing we're kind of you know hits me is that like she actually understands it what are you thankful for him why he can't be seen Mary conceived your wife [Music]

Channel: USA TODAY

Views: 889,489

Rating: 4.9660559 out of 5

Keywords: bone marrow donor, leukemia, bone marrow transplant, save a life, be the match, bone marrow donation, militarykind stories, usat-humankind, Militarykind USA Today, Militarykind, usat-hkyoutube, usat-militarykind, usat-vpc, usat-mkjul18, usat-usatyoutube, usat-be the match, usat-youtubehk, usat-leukemia, usat-youtubeusat

Id: avjg2oxkVYo

Length: 4min 10sec (250 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018