The illusions of life and their fragility brought Eyal Tamir (51) and Nir Malka (53) together again, after 17 years in which they were not in touch, specifically at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.
It happened when Nir urgently needed a kidney transplant and was connected to dialysis, and Eyal was exposed to his urgent request in the media and on social networks for a kidney donation that would save his life.
He decided to settle down immediately, to be the life-saving donor.
The two men, who had previously been in close business and economic contact, were united by fate with tremendous power.
When they met again they sat for hours with each other, could not stop talking and also cried, constantly.
Nir talked about the physical deterioration and the immediate need for a kidney donation, and Eyal shared the abysmal sadness with which his youngest son chose to end his life when he was only 10 years and eight months old.
They both agreed that fate linked them again and embarked on a joint journey, very brave and rare in its physical and emotional strength.
About a month and a half ago, the trip was crowned a success, after complex surgeries performed for both of them at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Nir got Eyal's kidney and she is functioning well in his body, while Eyal has fulfilled his strong, altruistic desire to save a life after the death of his beloved son.
As they sit together at Nir's house in Tel Aviv on Saturday morning, talking about life over jahanon plates and vegetable omelets, the special connection between them is noticeable.
Connection in mind, body, in partnership of destiny.
"I do not know how to thank Eyal for saving my life," smiles Nir, "I earned a brother for life."
"I said to Nir in one of our conversations: I donate a kidney to you first of all for my selfish motives," Eyal says, "After he left us, I felt a strong need to save a life, to give of myself, my body. I closed a circle that was very, very important to me. "
Dr. Eviatar Nesher, director of the transplant department at Beilinson Hospital from the Clalit Group, cannot hide his excitement from the story he closely followed.
"I've seen almost everything in life before," he says, "but in such a rare connection between Eyal and Nir I'm not sure I came across. Eyal shared his personal story with me only after the surgery, and I remember just standing by his bed with tears in my eyes. It was one of the most moving moments. "I went through a career. A moment that gives fuel to continue to save lives, where you realize how huge, strengthening and balancing their joint journey together is for both of them."
"Save my life"
Nir and Eyal first met 18 years ago when Nir, an accountant by profession, owned the company "Record Economic Solutions".
"We wanted to expand the business, so we made an economic plan and recruited people from all over the country," he recalled.
"We opened a special six-month course, which was attended by 15 people who we trained for work with the goal of getting a franchise and opening our own branch."
One of the participants in the course was Eyal, until then an employee vice president at an insurance agency, who at the end of the course opened a branch in Jerusalem. "We had continuous contact," Nir continues.
Eyal's branch in Jerusalem lasted a little over a year, but it closed and turned to other avenues in life.
During the year that the branch operated, Eyal and Nir had an excellent professional relationship, but of course not one that can be defined as soul mates.
When Eyal closed the branch, everyone went their separate ways.
Nir, divorced and the father of Shachar (25 years old) and Nadav (22 years old), is now the owner of the "Insurance" insurance agency.
"I have diabetes and am constantly under medical supervision," he says, "and in August 2020 I sat down with a private nephrologist who looked at my blood tests, saw the collapse in kidney function and asked, 'Is there anyone who can give you a kidney?'
That way, up front. "
It's a five-pound hammer in the head.
"Yes, definitely. I was obviously stressed, although I still did not feel anything physical in my body, but it's scary. I went into a kind of repression and went to all sorts of alternative healers who told me all sorts of stories.
"I changed my diet, which unfortunately did not help, and I started to get tired and exhausted all the time. I really fell asleep. It was exactly a year ago, and then a nephrologist at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba told me 'start dialysis.' Three times a week, four net hours each. time.
"Dialysis has completely exhausted me. It's not a treatment that you come out of and say 'come on, let's go wild.' Fast and at the height of power. "
Nir began researching and gathering information on the subject.
He went to the "Gift of Life" organization, which recruits volunteers to donate kidneys and accompanies them, and signed up there for a donation, but very quickly realized that everything depends only on him.
"My whole family tried to pass the tests and questionnaires, but unfortunately none of them were suitable to donate a kidney to me," he says.
"When I realized that salvation would not come from the family, I started running campaigns on Facebook and various newspapers. I addressed the public at the height of their power and asked: I need an immediate kidney donation, save my life.
"I reached out to about 200 people, altruists, who signed up and wanted to donate a kidney to me, but unfortunately they did not match for various reasons. My sister Sharon and my daughter coordinated the referrals. They built a neat Excel spreadsheet, and Sharon called everyone who contacted and inquired. "They went for more advanced tests, but there were also some who got cold feet on the way, and rightly so. I can not be angry with them, I understand them."
Nir (right) and Eyal after the operation.
Eyal: "I decided to get up and go visit him", Photo: From the private album
"Mental powers"
Each time the process progressed Nir was encouraged, but then disappointed when donor after potential donor fell because of a health problem or because he changed his mind and feared the complex surgery.
But alongside dialysis treatments, he continued to be active in his search for a suitable donor, as he knew full well that this was his chance to survive, to live.
"I did not sit down and tell myself that the association would take care of my donor or that the state would help me with the queues and it would be fine," he says.
"This is a message that is very important to convey: do not sit and wait. No one will do the work for you. Take full responsibility for your life, and act with all your might and in all possible channels.
"In my opinion, if I were to wait and trust the state's queue, for example, it would take at least 4 to 5 years, maybe even between 7 and 8. I think the state should do more campaigns to bring public awareness of how much people need a donation. Organs, probably to the kidneys. "
A little less than a year ago, in May 2021, Eyal arrived.
When he was exposed to Nir's post on Facebook, he decided he had to save him.
No less, he also knew he owed it to himself.
Eyal, now the owner of a mortgage consulting company, married to Sigalit (50), lives in Yavne and is the father of three: "Omar is 24, Liel is 19, and with them, he will stay for 10 and eight months."
In this sentence, he leaves me speechless.
"Two and a half years ago, he chose to share with his peers that he was starting to receive growth hormone," he says in words of the immense pain in his heart.
"We started giving him the hormone ten months before, during which he raised about 10 centimeters. In addition, in those months he learned to swim and joined the 'Pipman Group,' the running group of my coach, Shay Pipman.
"In retrospect, we realized that because he was taking growth hormone he was suffering from bullying, and there were those who said abusive words to him. We know there was verbal violence against him, but do not know if there was physical violence as well.
"With this luggage with them he went home at noon that day, September 3, 2019, at 13:45 noon. None of us were home, and he put the bag in the living room, turned on the TV, opened the porch door and jumped down from the sixth floor."
They were fatally wounded, and Sigalit and Eyal were immediately called.
"A policewoman who was at the scene picked up the phone and told me that something had happened to one of the children," Eyal continues.
"We both work close to home and we arrived immediately. It turned out that our neighbors actually saw what happened and called an ambulance.
With them he was taken to Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, and when we got there the doctor was very direct with us.
He said ‘if we go through the night, we will think about the next night’ and let us understand that there is not much chance that he will live with them.
The doctors fought for his life, but the next day, at 08:35 in the morning, he died with them. "
Eyal takes a moment, takes a deep breath and continues.
"The first thing my wife Sigalit and I talked about was that if he decided to leave us ahead of time with them, we would like to donate his organs," he says, "but unfortunately we did not win it because he had a systems collapse. His heart stopped beating and everything collapsed. Restart ', which is also coached by Pipman. "
"The longing only grows."
Sigalit and Eyal Tamir with their late son, Photo: from the family album
How do you proceed?
"Continuing. Life has power. We have two more children at home, and we are human beings. When we got home from the hospital, after our loved one passed away, we had a few hours before the funeral, and Sigalit took me into our bedroom and said that everything I did was wrong during Life she knew how to forgive me, but she would not forgive me for just one thing - God forbid I would do anything to myself and leave her alone.
"Then she came out of the room, took me, Omar and Liel, we held hands and she told us all that our togetherness would give us the strength to keep going. She showed tremendous mental strength, amazing powers."
Still, how do you get through the first days, and then the months and years without them?
"In the week of the shiva you do not remember anything. After that, immediately after the shiva I went back to work. I was very self-conscious and knew that if I stayed at home I would sink.
"I also went back to the running training I do after the shiva. I started five years ago, and today I do triathlons and I also did half iron man.
"Along with that, I cry more today than I cried at first. It does not end but only intensifies. The intense longing for them, its lack.
"A few months ago I told Sigalit that since he left with them we have had quite a few happy moments, but I asked her if there was a chance I would be a happy person again. She answered me yes, that I am not there yet but that there are happy moments in our family and life in general.
"With them he received from us as a gift Yuval Abramovich's book The List for Children and wrote there: 'I wish all the people in the world would be happy.' For us, this is his will. We must continue to live happily. We are allowed to hurt, we are allowed to cry in moments of pain, Such every day, but in between there are also quite a few happy moments.
"I also decided to talk about them in any situation. I give lectures on the power of a word, speaking of the severe verbal abuse he suffered. I lecture mainly in home circles and was invited to lecture at both IDF bases and in front of teenagers, but it was really not enough and I was happy to do so. More.
After Eitam's death, we released a sticker: 'Words can build and words can destroy - choose yours wisely!' ".
"Significant process"
After the terrible and sad death of Eitam, Eyal says that in several conversations with Sigalit he told her that he really wanted to donate an organ from his body.
Save other people's lives.
"I felt it in my stomach," he says.
"I do not know how to explain it in words, I just felt it was the right thing to do, that for me there would be a closing of the circle here. She will not bring back my son and it will not replace, because nothing else comes close to it, "It's just sat tight with me since he left us with them."
Save someone else.
"Yes, absolutely. A little over a year ago I suddenly saw on Facebook that Nir posted an exciting post that he needed a kidney. It took me exactly three seconds to decide. I called Sigalit and told her - this is my time, I want to donate to Nir Kidney. Sigalit supported me and my will.
"I sent Nir a message on WhatsApp: 'I saw your post, and I want to start doing tests.' I asked him to direct me on what to do, and Nir referred me to his sister Sharon, who coordinated all the inquiries. I did at Beilinson Hospital. "
During the adjustments and tests, Eyal came to meet Nir at Meir Hospital, when the latter was on dialysis.
"I sat with him for three hours, and it is impossible to remain indifferent to his story, and unfortunately not to ours either. I told Nir in this conversation that I was entering into this process for myself no less than for him.
"We were very visible and open in conversation, and we made a joint decision that we would do things step by step. We promised each other that we would go through everything together, step by step. From there the relationship grew stronger all the time.
The process Eyal went through was not simple, and without his incredible insistence, this would not have come to fruition.
"I did my first blood tests at the HMO," he says.
"They check the blood type and the antibodies there and if I am at all suitable to donate a kidney to Nir, and it turned out that I am suitable.
"Then I had a meeting with Anat Brieger, the transplant coordinator at Beilinson, with whom I had an initial conversation that is made for all potential donors.
"After three minutes she closed my bag and said we should break up as friends. I asked why? She replied that because I was born in the seventh month, expired.
"Anat explained to me that the development of the kidneys from the eighth month of pregnancy is significant, and when you reach the eighth and ninth months, the future and normal development of the kidneys is of great significance. Therefore, they are usually not interested in continuing with a donor born in the seventh month.
"In a moment's decision I said I did not agree to the explanation and asked for a call with a nephrologist. She brought the hospital's chief nephrologist, who said she allows me to continue just because I'm not a 20 year old child and because I play sports. Her condition was that all my tests be 100 Percent, not 90 ".
I mean, without your insistence, the whole procedure would have ended?
"Absolutely. But I did not agree to give up and continued testing until the last part, but then I underwent a CT scan, which basically reflected all my body systems, and I got a phone call: 'We have to stop the process.'"
What happened?
"I found a 30 percent stenosis in one of the arteries leading to the heart. In this situation, if you live with one kidney, your chances of having a heart attack are higher than that of a person living with two kidneys.
"As soon as they told me to stop the process, I said to myself 'once you have argued, let's argue this time too.' Opinion of a cardiologist.
"In September I sent them the results of tests I have done for the last four years. Because I do sports I do tests all the time, and they saw my improvement graph in cholesterol, blood lipids and more. My claim was that what is sitting there on the artery is not now, but from the time I was fat I lived a very unhealthy life. "
Determined and uncompromising, Eyal was able to convince the doctors that he could move forward in the kidney donation process to Nir.
How did Sigalit react to your stubbornness? You have been told that it can be dangerous and you have already experienced a terrible disaster. It did not scare her and you?
"Sigalit went with me all the way. Her choice was to give me support. To tell you that she was not afraid? She was afraid. Not necessarily of that, but mainly of my intended anesthesia in the donation surgery. But she realized it was a very deep and meaningful process I went through, this desire to save lives , And we knew not everything would go smoothly.
"By the way, such thoughts came to me, of course, because you are not allowed to ignore the risks. Throughout the process, you are talked to about statistics. You go up to the operating table and undergo anesthesia and surgery, when one in 3,000 does not wake up.
"But in the end you put at risk the risks you take on yourself versus the chance of letting another person live, and realize it's not a consideration at all."
It was also actually some private will of yours? Have you decided to give life after your son has finished his life?
"Yeah, that's how I felt."
"Like climbing a mountain"
Throughout the process, Eyal and Nir became real soulmates, and four and a half months ago they went through the National Transplant Committee, which approved the intended surgery.
"When I realized that Eyal was very determined to donate a kidney to me, that he was closed to himself with the donation, I allowed myself to be in close contact with him," says Nir.
"In the months leading up to the transplant, I was at his house in Yavne, I knew Sigalit and we had quite a few conversations, almost on a daily basis."
Eyal: "After everything was happy I felt elated. I went through a long and deep process that was like climbing a high mountain.
"If that's not enough, a month and a half ago I fell ill with the corona, but even then everything worked out for me.
"Because I had a corona I hurried to inform Anat, the transplant coordinator at Beilinson, so on that occasion she informed me of the surgery date, February 9, and asked if I wanted to inform Nir. I told her I would definitely let him know.
"Nir and I became close friends in the long months before the surgeries, I gained a soul mate. It does not happen in most of these cases, but something very good happened to us together. I informed him of the date of the surgery and asked him not to get excited. Let him calm down or at least try.
"I think our previous acquaintance also has weight in the friendships that have been formed, both in the fact that we are the same age and parents of children, and also in the fact that Nir agreed to be with me in the process from the first moment.
"A lot of times donors see the transplant recipient only on the day of surgery or the day before, if at all. Not everyone wants to and not everyone has a connection like the one created between Nir and me.
"Unlike perhaps in other cases, I did not do this process to get gratitude from someone. I said to Nir sharply in one of our conversations: I do it first of all for my very selfish motives. At the same time, I very much understand Nir's side as well. It really created a situation where each of us simply earned his own. "
"Not a small operation"
Nir himself was hospitalized the day before Eyal, who arrived for his surgery the morning he was performed and of course operated on first.
"When I met Nir before my surgery, the excitement started to rise in me," he says, "but it was not in heaven for me. My position was very solid, and I was completely whole."
The operation, which was supposed to last two and a half hours, actually lasted close to four hours.
"During the operation, they discovered that my kidney was connected in three arteries and not in two arteries, like a standard kidney," says Eyal, "so the doctors and the entire staff had to work harder.
"The first thing I asked the doctors when I woke up was what was going on with Nir. The doctor told me, 'He got a beautiful pink kidney, and it was absorbed and functioning.'"
The doctor is Dr. Eviatar Nesher, director of the transplant department at Beilinson. A person who finds it difficult to grasp the scope of his work - and its critical nature.
"We perform 210 kidney transplants a year," he says.
"Along with another 44 liver transplants. We also did two bowel transplants and other things.
"It should be understood that the surgery Snir and Eyal underwent is not a small operation. It is a large and complex operation that has been a great success. I am always thrilled by the altruism of people like Eyal, who simply decide to donate from their bodies while endangering themselves,
Why?
"I will never forget how I examined Eyal on the doctors' tour after his surgery. I saw a tattoo on his hand and asked him to compromise. He told me about his son with them and even though I saw, heard and treated almost everything, I had tears in my eyes. "Eyal and how unusual this story is. It is very rare for a donor and a transplant to connect like this. To my delight, everything looks great with Nir and he has perfect kidney function."
"I shivered."
Dr. Nesher,
The day after the surgeries, Eyal came to visit his friend.
"Nir lay two rooms away from me and I decided to get up and go visit him," he says.
"It was the first time I cried since we met him on dialysis. I was very excited. I think I'm the only man who let him get close to Nir at the level of a hug, because any physical intimacy could jeopardize his immune system. He lay in bed and of course took longer than me to recover.
"When I came he opened his eyes and spoke to me a few words. I do not remember at all what was there. I had a blackout of excitement."
"Mutual Commitment"
Eyal was released from the hospital four days after the operation, and it took Nir eight days.
Today, a month and a half later, he already feels much better.
"I've been home for a month or more, and the kidney, tap-tap so-called, is well absorbed. You see it in the indices. Twice a week I'm in the hospital, they do blood tests and other tests, and you see that the kidney is absorbed excellently. I also feel it is excellently absorbed."
"This story has taken us to much deeper, emotional places."
Eyal (right) and Nir, Photo: Efrat Eshel
Is it even possible to thank Eyal for his noble deed?
"Impossible. I'm willing to do anything for him, to give him everything, but whatever I do - it will not be a tenth of a percent of what he did for me. In the hospital I was with him all the time, my family was with him, my children.
"I earned a brother, a lifelong friend. With no connection to the kidney, Eyal is an amazing person. 18 years ago I knew him in a completely different way, now I know a new person.
"I promise I will be for him all my life, for whatever he needs, in any form. He knows it, I just hope he agrees to accept from me this mutual commitment. What happened here is just fate, I do not know how to explain it in other terms. This story It took us to much deeper, emotional places. "
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