Bronson cancer survivor invites life-saving donor to be best man
BRONSON, Iowa (KCAU) – Ten years before meeting the love of his life, Ben Clark was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma, a rare blood cancer. He then partnered with DKMS to find a stem cell donor who would become more than just a perfect match.
“I signed up to the registry and two years later, Ben needed my stem cells,” Stem cell donor Jan Rolfes said.
Jan Rolfes lives in Sweden and is a stem cell donor. Rolfes says he understood the importance of being a donor at a young age.
“A family friend of ours who was also 8 years old, a little bit older than me, like he got Leukemia. And then all the family friends tried, like registered, among them my mom. But unfortunately like he didn’t make it,” Rolfes said.
So when Rolfes got the call that someone halfway across the world needed his stem cells, he didn’t hesitate.
“So back in 2010, it had been August 2010 when I first got diagnosed with Lymphoma. I had undergone treatment for it. I was in remission and it came back. And that’s when we decided, you know, it was time to maybe look at a transplant,” Cancer survivor Ben Clark said.
Ben Clark was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer and had been waiting for a match for years. Ben was also in the middle of planning his wedding, so when he got news of a donor match, him and his wife came up with the same idea.
“When I met Ben I knew that that was one of his dreams, was to meet his bone marrow donor. So I tried to find him on my own to invite him to the wedding and the reason I did that was because we knew it was a long shot,” Ben’s wife Jayme Clark said.
“So I was doing the same thing, I was emailing him and inviting him, telling him we’re engaged, we’re going to be getting married in September and then he initially sent an email to both of us and said hey look, you know, you both are trying to do the same thing here,” Ben Clark added.
The plan was to bring Jan to Iowa for the wedding, but then, Ben decided that Jan would be his best man.
“Who else better to be your best man than the guy that saved your life so I felt it was right,” Clark said.
“This is important to him and I want to, I want to make this happen, because this was like, I can understand this. Like I was also like curious how his family would be, like who is my recipient actually,” Rolfes said.
Now, Ben and Jan are bonded for life through a life-saving donation.
“I’m here because of him. And you know, yes it was our special day but initially he’s the reason I’m still here and get to be married to my best friend. We want people to get on the registry, you can’t have enough people,” Clark said.
During Ben and Jayme’s wedding, they continued to celebrate the gift of life by registering all their guests to become donors. If you’d like to learn more about how you can become a donor, click here.
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