MOSAIC, Fall 2009

 

What would you do if someone were to ask you for a piece of your body?  Most of us would probably think twice, but some of our seminarians didn't hesitate to do it.

 

Take Tim Wezner, a second-year college seminarian from SS. Cyril & Methodius Parish in Sterling Heights.  When the National Marrow Donor Program called him in April, he agreed to help a stranger whom he would never meet.

 

"Because of confidentiality laws, all they could tell me about him was that he was a 41-year-old man who had leukemia," says Wezner. "And he didn't know anything about me, except my age and that I am male." And he knew, of course, that Wezner's bone marrow type was a match that could supply the peripheral blood stem cells necessary to regenerate his own marrow. The treatment for leukemia destroys the cells in the bone marrow, halting its capacity to produce cells.

The donor program identified Wezner as a potential match because he was already in its database. He had gone to a marrow drive about five years ago at the behest of a colleague at the radio station where he was working as a computer technician before entering the seminary.

 

"I used to give blood every two or three months, so it was just another blood drive to me," he says.

 

It turned into a much bigger project, however, when the registry called to ask him to undergo further testing to find out just how much of a match he was for this man.

 

"How do you say no to something like that?" asks Wezner. "It reminded me of our Lord saying, 'When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was naked, you clothed me.' The man was sick,
so I helped him."

 

Because of the particulars of the case, he did not donate any marrow. Instead, he was able to donate his stem cells in a more direct, less invasive manner. In June, a nurse came to the seminary daily for five days to inject Wezner with a drug that stimulated his marrow to produce the needed cells. Then, he went to the Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit to have his blood filtered by an apheresis machine, a process that took four to five hours.

 

Although he was willing to repeat the process in a few months, as is sometimes necessary, he learned that it wasn't. The man had died.

 

Thankfully, the three other seminarians known to have given parts of themselves away had happier experiences. Each donated a kidney successfully. Jason Kern and a seminarian who wishes to remain anonymous each gave one to their mothers without hesitation. "Why wouldn't I do it?" asks the anonymous seminarian. "She was my mom."

 

Kern, a second-year theology student from the Diocese of Winona, had the same thoughts when he made his decision five years ago, while still a senior in high school. For him, it was about following the Lord by laying down his life for his friends.

 

"That is ultimately what being a priest is about—living a sacrificial life for others and doing it in and through Jesus," he says.

 

Kern adds that his decision has blessed his family by bringing it closer together. Likewise, a kidney donation forged a similar familial bond between Tim Renz and Beto Espinoza when Renz gave Espinoza a kidney in 2007 (see "Brother in Need" in the Fall 2007 Mosaic). "We were friends before, but now it's like we're brothers," says Renz, a third-year theologian from the Diocese of Madison.

 

Gaining a brother and a dialysis-free life were not the only blessings for Espinoza. Renz's enthusiasm opened his eyes to something greater. "I saw that God himself was working through Timothy," says Espinoza. Now, he is looking forward to his priestly ordination in May so that he can give himself to the Lord in return here in Detroit.