By Leah Thorsen, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 13, 2007
For much of a celebration of bone marrow transplants on Friday, one donor was missing. Lt. John Hiltz was nowhere to be seen while doctors gave encouragement to the nearly 500 people who gathered at the Chase Park Plaza, or while they ate and chatted with one another.
Hiltz, 27, a Navy pilot, hung back in his sixth-floor hotel room and then hid backstage behind a curtain. He wanted to make sure that the man who received his donation didn''t see him until the time was right. Otherwise, the surprise would have been ruined.
No one had told Drew Weiland, 24, of Hillsboro, that Hiltz would be at the celebration organized by the Siteman Cancer Center. The men had talked on the phone a few times but had never met in person until Friday, when Hiltz stunned Weiland with a surprise appearance onstage.
"Drew was never far from my thoughts and prayers," he said.
Their meeting had been a long time coming. Three of Hiltz''s friends at the University of Notre Dame died of leukemia, so he signed up on a bone marrow registry in 2001 in hopes he could help someone else. All it took was a cotton swab to his cheek. He went on to Navy training and learned to fly the F-18 fighter planes known as Super Hornets.
Then, in February 2006, he got a call saying there was a 5 to 8 percent chance that a match had been found. After more testing, he learned that his bone marrow was a match for someone who needed a transplant. He didn''t know who that person was, but he asked his commanding officer for permission to leave flight training to undergo the process to donate. It meant a seven-day hospital stay, and it meant that he couldn''t fly for 45 days afterward. It also meant that his graduation would be delayed.
Permission was granted, and his marrow was collected in April 2006. A few months later, Hiltz learned that the recipient had relapsed and now needed mature white blood cells. By then, Hiltz was a fleet pilot getting ready to be deployed for combat missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, he asked permission to leave to help the man whose name he didn''t even know. Again, he got permission. A three-day hospital stay followed, although he was able to begin flying soon after.
He was deployed in January and spent seven months flying combat missions. He kept a black "command coin" with him during these missions that bore the name of the Black Knights, the name of his squadron. Hiltz constantly wondered how his recipient was doing and prayed for the best.
"I would get worried about what happened," said Hiltz, of Lemoore, Calif. He waived confidentiality rights; so did his donor. And soon, Hiltz learned the name of the man whose life he had saved — Drew Weiland.
Weiland, a Siteman Cancer Center patient, had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in November 2005. He is 6 feet 2, and dropped to 120 pounds during treatment, said his father, Ray Weiland. Over a five-month period, he spent 18 weeks in the hospital.
Drew Weiland is now doing well. He''s thinking about a technology-related career, his dad said, but his family takes things day by day and celebrates every success, no matter how big or small.
On Friday, Hiltz joined in that celebration by giving Drew Weiland the Black Knights coin he had carried with him through his missions.
"You were with me, big guy," Hiltz said.