Dear Bloodbrother or Sister,
My name is Peter Kapitein and I am 48 years old. I am dutchman and married to a beautiful wife called Marjolijn. I am the father of two boys. Milo aged 12 and Jaron aged 10. Two wonderful boys, bad boys, but my bad boys.
Since the 7th of january 2005 I live with lymfecancer and I was treated with chemotherapy in 2005 (twice) and in 2006. In 2007 I got an immunotherapy. On the 31st of january 2008 my wonderful doctor Marie José Kersten told me that nothing until now has worked properly. The tumor was still growing and my chances of surviving were small. Very small. In fact if we wouldn’t continuing treatment I would probably have died before christmas 2008.
My motivation in life are my two boys, together with the promise to my grandfather in 1982 to become 87 years old like he did. At that moment I didn’t realize that I would need a motivation as strong as my two beautiful boys to reach my goal. In moments of doubt in surviving I look at them and ask myself questions like ‘How will it be when Milo is starting at high school?’. ‘How will it be when Jaron is falling in love?’. ‘How will it be to be a grandfather?’. In fact ‘How will it be when Milo and Jaron are becoming a father and I can start telling my grandchildren the lessons of life and the beautifull things that are among us?’.
The 31st of january 2008 Marie José Kersten told me that I needed a stemcell transplantation with the stemcells of a donor to survive. An unrelated donor. And that’s when you came into my life. You wonderfull unknown man or woman somewhere in Europe. I was told that you could only save my life with your stemcells by harvesting them straight from your bone marrow and therefore you had to be anaesthetized. This I found incredible and so beautiful. You did this for someone you don’t know. You did this to save the life of a totally unknown. Just because you wanted to do something for someone else. This is so pure and unselfish. Off course I was happy and thankful. First of all because you gave me a future with my loved ones and especially with my wife and two boys and their coming children. You also made clear that in this beautiful world there are beautiful people who are worth living for. You did the most exciting thing you can do for another person. You saved his life.
On the 3rd of september 2008 I got your stemcells from my second and beloved doctor Henk Lokhorst. I recovered amazingly fast from the treatments and now on the 9th of march I live with your blood and almost without medicines. It’s just your blood I’m living on and that protects me from infections, makes me swim-bike-and-run again like the old days. I lost the line of blood with my parents and my sons but started to realize that other things are important in living with my father and mother. In loving my sons. In living with the dearest among me. I realized that I was raised by two great parents that gave me love, savety and affection. Every day I see parts of myself when I look at my two kids. Blood is one thing. Loving is the other and much more important when it comes up to the ones you are related to.
After all the treatments I got. After all the heavy years I have lived with cancer I now strongly believe that you gave me a new life starting on the birthday of my grandfather. You are my bloodbrother or bloodsister now. I hope to meet you. I respect your refusal if so. But one way or the other I want to say to you with great respect and love: ‘Thank you for saving my life!’.
Peter Kapitein
Opgeven is Geen Optie!