A few weeks ago, we had
a real superhero in studio.
John Short, a
fifth-grader at St. John School in Lincoln, stopped by Sept. 30 with his dad,
Bill, to talk about saving his sister’s life.
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| John Short |
About a month earlier, 10-year-old
John donated his bone marrow to his 11-year-old sister, Kim. In July, she
discovered she had severe aplastic anemia, which causes her bone marrow to stop
producing blood cells, and needed a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible.
The best match for the transplant was a sibling, and John said he was eager to
be tested and hoped to be a match.
He even wanted to be
tested first so that if he was a match, his two other siblings –Katie, 13, and
brother, Matt, 8 – wouldn’t have to go through the pain of being tested, John
said.
“I think God helped me
with the decision,” John told Spirit Catholic Radio, adding that he wasn’t
scared because he saw his sister already go through two bone marrow biopsies.
“We were really scared
for Kim and very proud of John,” Bill said.
The Aug. 28 surgery,
which took place at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, involved doctors making
four small incisions near John’s hip bones and pelvis and extracting stem cells
with 25 needles.
“The bag of cells they removed
… that’s what life looks like,” Bill said. “I was literally going to see life
poured into my daughter from my son.”
The surgery was
successful and John’s recovery was quick. He spent two weeks at home to recover
and build up his immune system before returning to school Sept. 3. Kim, who was
released from the Med Center Sept. 23, is home in Lincoln and still recovering
from the transplant. Her family is concerned with her catching an infection,
Bill said, so she will remain out of school for some time.
When John returned to
school, his teacher, Gina Steele, and his classmates surprised him with a party,
cake and superhero cape.
Steele said she was impressed
with the magnitude of John’s good deed and asked some moms from her classroom
to sew the cape. A classmate designed the cape’s logo.
Steele said she begins
every school year with a lesson on bullying and about what it means to be a
good friend. Then her students spend the year doing random acts of
kindness as a class. She said she used John as an example in these lessons
of what it means to be a hero, or a good friend, by doing what needs to be done
without expecting payment in some way.
“I think this deed that
John did for his sister is one of the biggest good deeds anyone could do,”
Steele said.
Bill said that good
deeds are something he tries to foster in his children, especially through
scouting.
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| John Short and Bill Short |
“The three tenants of
scouting are duty to God and country, duty to others and lastly, duty to self.
We try to instill that in our kids as character builders,” he said. “This is a
pretty good example of someone putting someone else above their own needs …
really fulfilling their duty to others.”
Bill said his faith and
the faith of others have helped him and the family during this trying time. He
admitted that before his daughter’s diagnosis, he was struggling in his faith.
Divorced and raising four children, he said he was losing hope and “not feeling
happy with my life.”
But once the news got
out that Kim was sick, family and friends, including those from St. John
Parish, where the Shorts have been members for 15 years, showered them with
support and prayers, he said.
“The outpouring of
support and thoughts and prayers from the St. John community and people at work
has been wonderful and has renewed my faith,” Bill said.
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