{"id":247890,"date":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/bone-marrow-recipient-officiates-donors-wedding\/"},"modified":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T07:00:00","slug":"bone-marrow-recipient-officiates-donors-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/bone-marrow-recipient-officiates-donors-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"Receptora de m\u00e9dula \u00f3sea oficia boda de donante"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hoa Quach<\/p>\n

One could say a couple\u2019s wedding officiant will always be a part of the couple.<\/p>\n

But, in the case of North Park\u2019s Kevin Zempko and Erica Wacker, it\u2019s the groom that will always be a part of the officiant. That\u2019s because Zempko donated his bone marrow to his officiant, Dianne Mahura, in 2008.<\/p>\n

\"Sierra<\/a>
Newlyweds Kevin Zempko and Erica Wacker had their wedding officiated by Zempko\u2019s bone marrow recipient Dianne Mahura. (Photo by Sierra Solis, 8twenty8 Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After meeting face to face in 2009, the two have maintained a close bond, enough so that Zempko and his fianc\u00e9 asked Mahura to officiate their Oct. 11 wedding in San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world to me personally and to Erica as well,\u201d Zempko said. \u201cI have a fantastic relationship with Dianne and her family. It comes naturally; nothing is forced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their connection started two months after Mahura was diagnosed with leukemia. At the age of 44, Mahura, a mother of three, was told she wouldn\u2019t live without a transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost fainted when they told me I would need to take a year of my life to recover, and needed a stem cell transplant to possibly live,\u201d said Mahura, who resides in Calgary. \u201cI saw eight people die in the same ward with leukemia while I was in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

After learning that not one of her four siblings was a match, she was told a 32-year-old man was.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in another part of North America, a Marine had agreed to donate his bone marrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI received a call from the [Department of Defense] Bone Marrow Program in November 2007, that\u2019s when I first heard that there was a person in this world in need of my stem cells,\u201d Zempko said. \u201cBy Feb. 4, 2008, I was sitting in a hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, sitting through a five-plus-hour surgery to harvest my bone marrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a successful surgery, the two were forbidden from contacting each other for a year because of a hospital policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstantly for a year we thought of him daily and what kind of person he was,\u201d Mahura said. \u201cIt was so important for me to thank this man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mahura<\/a>
Mahura holds up Zempko\u2019s bone
marrow donation. (Courtesy Kevin Zempko)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zempko said he thought about Mahura often too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would think about this process for over a year,\u201d Zempko said. \u201cI ran a few marathons and dedicated those races to whoever this person was. When you\u2019re training for a marathon and running a marathon for three to four-plus hours, you have a lot of time to think and reflect. I never thought twice about not allowing Dianne to contact me. [I] was anxious to hear her story.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year after the surgery, the two began emailing each other. Then in May 2009, Mahura flew to San Diego to meet Zempko and to cheer for him during another marathon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I met him was very emotional,\u201d Mahura said. \u201cWe were both excited and shaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the meeting was more than just one between a donor and his recipient. The two became friends who visited each other despite the miles between them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see them about twice a year and we text all the time,\u201d Mahura said. \u201cEvery time he comes to Calgary, I have a huge backyard party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last summer, Mahura later met Wacker, who Zempko began dating in 2011. It was later an easy decision to ask Mahura to officiate the couple\u2019s marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen looking for an officiant, we wanted someone we were close with and knew us both,\u201d Wacker said. \u201cKevin\u2019s connection with Dianne is incredible, she has such a great spirit about her, just like Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahura said she was shocked and speechless when the couple asked her to serve as their officiant, but just like her and Zempko, it seemed fate had brought the couple together.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a 10 out of 10 bone marrow match, but more importantly a 10 out of 10 match made in heaven for [Wacker],\u201d Mahura said. \u201cI was told I likely wouldn’t live without the transplant. It was very rare that we were a perfect match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahura told their story in front of more than the 130 attendees at Zempko\u2019s wedding at the Bristol Hotel in Downtown San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate everyday and am incredibly thankful for Kevin,\u201d Mahura said.<\/p>\n

\u2014Contact Hoa Quach by visiting hoawrites.com.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hoa Quach<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":247891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Bone marrow recipient officiates donor\u2019s wedding","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}