"He’s playing outside again and living a normal life.  That’s worth everything."

Ruben Mendez is a hero in two cities.  He’s a hero in Laredo, his hometown, because he selflessly rushed to the aid of a child with a devastating blood disease and gave his own bone marrow in a lifesaving emergency.  And he’s a hero in San Bernardino, CA, where the little boy lives and is now recovering from a frightening battle with severe aplastic anemia, thanks to Ruben.

Ruben donated bone marrow on August 7, 2003, for the 10-year-old boy whom he has never met.  It was just six months after Ruben signed up with the National Marrow Donor Program as a potential donor that he was matched with the little boy.  When he got the call, he did not hesitate.  He went through additional testing to verify that he and the boy were a good match, and when the tests indicated that a bone marrow transfusion from Ruben would give the child a chance at a long, healthy life, Ruben and his family drove straight to San Antonio to undergo the procedure.

“It was an in-and-out procedure,” Ruben readily tells everyone.  “I want people to know it’s easy, fast and almost painless.  People mistakenly believe they go into your spine, but actually, they go into your buttocks and it’s an aspiration, not an incision.  There are no stitches.  I was in the hospital at 10 a.m. and by 1 p.m., back in my hotel room.  That evening, we went out to dinner and I felt fine.  The only soreness was similar to working out on a treadmill for a while.”

Would he do it again?  “In a minute,” he says, “with no qualms whatsoever.”

The best payoff, Ruben says, is knowing that the little boy, whose life and health were threatened before the transplant, is now fully in remission.  “He’s playing outside again and living a normal life.  That’s worth everything.”