Donor travels to see girl he saved graduate. He watched his brother die, so he volunteered to save Stephanie.
By ERIC CARPENTER
Orange County Register


ANAHEIM - Seventeen years ago, Bill Atkinson was lying in a hospital bed hoping – affirming actually – that the needles going into his hip would help save a baby thousands of miles away. A baby he'd never met.

He kept saying to himself, "This is going to work. My bone marrow is going to help save a life. I know it is." He endured those moments of pain, confident he would help that baby live, grow and someday achieve dreams.

Tuesday morning, Atkinson watched Stephanie Rudat of Anaheim, now 18 years old, old enough to understand, as she turned that gift into a milestone – for both of them. Atkinson, 54, flew in from his home in Vermont just to see it on his own dime.

It was an achievement that Stephanie might have never lived to see had it not been for the man she affectionately calls "Donor Bill." "It's a big life moment for me," Stephanie said. "I wanted to share it with him … because I love him."

In 1992, Stephanie was just 2 months old when doctors discovered that she had leukemia and would almost certainly not survive without a bone-marrow transplant.

Her parents and her only sibling, a sister two years older, were not a match.

On the other side of the country, Atkinson, a chief warrant officer in the Navy, had decided to sign up on the then-newly created National Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

He had lost his older brother, Ken, to leukemia years earlier. And when he found out about the registry, he signed up immediately, eager to help somebody else survive.

Months went by and Atkinson began to forget about the registry. Until he got a call that he was somebody's match.

By law, he couldn't know who he was helping for at least the first year. Nor could the Rudat family know who the donor was. But both had hints.

The Rudats were told that if the transplant were scheduled in the evening – which it was – the marrow was coming from the East Coast. And doctors referred to the donor as "him."

Atkinson asked a lot of questions and presumed by the relatively small amount of marrow taken that he was helping a baby.

After the first critical years passed and Baby Stephanie's health was improving, both parties wrote to a third-party registry official asking if they could meet.

In October 1993, Atkinison flew out and met the Rudats.

He remembers seeing a 2½-year-old Stephanie in a sparkling white dress: "This was my opportunity to give the gift of life I wasn't able to give my brother."

Many letters and e-mails have followed since, tracking Stephanie's milestones. Her completion of kindergarten. Her entering high school and making the soccer team. Her getting a volunteer job at Crystal Cathedral talking to troubled teens and adults on a suicide hotline.

The Rudats flew to Washington D.C. in the mid-'90s to meet up with Atkinson to help lobby for federal funding for bone-marrow programs.

And in 1998, they flew to Maine to celebrate with Atkinson as he retired as a master chief from the Navy.

Aside from those visits, Atkinson followed Stephanie's progress from afar. She takes frequent growth-hormone injections and sees an endocrinologist at Children's Hospital of Orange County. She has remained cancer free.

Stephanie's mom, Farhat Rudat, wrote to Atkinson to let him know that her daughter was graduating from Katella High School. He immediately decided he had to come.

They kept his visit a secret to surprise Stephanie.

On Saturday, he flew out and met the Rudats at their Anaheim home.

"I had told my mom that I wanted to invite Donor Bill," Stephanie said. "But she said it was probably too short notice. And I assumed he couldn't come."

So when Stephanie's father answered the door and told her she had to come see who it was, Stephanie reacted like a typical teenager.

"I was like, 'Whoever that is, can't you just let them in?' …Then I saw who it was, and I was shocked."

They hugged. Stephanie kept touching his face as if to make sure it was really him.

Atkinson and Stephanie spent the next day hanging out in Newport Beach, talking and catching up.

On Monday, they visited the cancer institute at CHOC to meet with doctors and remember just how far Stephanie has come from her cancer diagnosis.

"We've talked about school, sports, boys, the social scene, a bit of everything," Atkinson said. "I'm so happy to see that she has become a talented, lovely young woman."

Stephanie plans to attend Cal State Fullerton next year. Eventually, she'd like to study medicine and become a doctor.

Farhat Rudat teared up watching her daughter, now a healthy adult, thank her "lifesaver" in person.

"There is no greater gift," the mom said. "I still have that little white dress from when Stephanie met Donor Bill the first time. That moment meant so much; I can't let it go. This is our living miracle."

Tuesday, at Glover Stadium in Anaheim, Atkinson sat with Stephanie's parents, in the bleachers, and looked on as the Katella High students walked to receive their diplomas. When "Stephanie Rudat'' rang out over the loudspeakers, Atkinson beamed.

After the ceremony, they all gathered just off of the field. Dad placed a lei around his daughter's neck and kissed her. Mom placed a lei around Atkinson, and they hugged.

"Thank you," Donor Bill said.