A 4-year-old Turkish child met for the first time at an event in Athens earlier in the week the Greek stem cell donor who saved his life two years ago.
Commemorating a touching instance of solidarity, Çağatay Dramalı, along with his family and physicians, took the trip to the Greek capital upon the invitation of his Greek donor Alexandros Apostoludas.
The two came together at an event organized to promote stem cell therapy there, adding even more meaning and significance to the occasion.
This reunion marked the first time the two individuals became acquainted with each other in real terms due to the international regulations prohibiting the patient and donor from meeting for two years.
Former Greek Prime Minister Lukas Papadimos, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis, and Turkish Ambassador to Athens Çağatay Erciyes, who welcomed Dramalı and his family at the embassy prior to the organization, were among the participants at the event.
Boy’s ancestors emigrated from Greece
Çağatay Dramalı’s father noted that his ancestors emigrated from Drama a century ago during the population exchange between Turkey and Greece.
“My grandfather’s mother gave birth to him as soon as she stepped off the ship when she arrived at Bandırma. We have Greek roots, which is why we acquired the surname Dramalı,” he explained. Their surname Dramalı means “from Drama,” in Turkish.
Cihan Dramalı, according to Anadolu Agency, expressed his happiness at his return to Greece in this sense, underlining that he now considers Apostoludas as “a brother.”
“This [donation] is a really sacred thing. All of us in good health must contribute,” said Hande Dramalı, the mother. “We were fortunate. We might have been in serious difficulty right now if we hadn’t been able to find a donor. We are happy.”
Greek donor ecstatic
The donor Apostoludas, on the other hand, emphasized that he was also as pleased as the boy’s family.
He noted that he was ecstatic to receive the news that he could donate to Çağatay Dramalı after giving his first blood sample about eight and a half years ago.
“Words cannot adequately explain it. I’m feeling so overwhelmed that I’m at a loss for words,” he said.
Emphasizing the importance of supporting initiatives that promote stem cell transplantation, the former prime minister Papadimos also marked the event as both “informative and full of emotion” in his remarks to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
“This demonstrates the unrestricted capacity of such occasions to motivate individuals to lend a hand to one another,” he said, referring to the heartwarming moments of Dramalı and his donor meeting on the stage.
Greek donor saves Turkish child from leukemia
In 2020 the bone marrow of a young Greek had become a source of hope for a Turkish boy suffering from leukemia. Doctors said that the operation on three-year-old Kuzey Deniz Şengezer, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2019, was successful.
The Greek donor, identified only by his first name, Andreas, is from Chania on the Greek island of Crete. His bone marrow was 90 percent compatible with the marrow of young Kuzey.
