Countywide : Chance of a Lifetime to Say Thanks

With tears in their eyes, Ann E. Gore and Patricia F. Manganaro embraced on Friday as they met for the first time--13 months after Gore donated the bone marrow that saved Manganaro’s life.

The emotional encounter at Los Angeles International Airport, complete with bouquets of flowers and enthusiastic applause by onlookers, has been in the works for nearly a year.

“You look great!” Gore exclaimed. ‘You’ve got beautiful hair.”

“You gave it to me,” responded Manganaro, 37, who lives in Reynoldsville, Pa., and will be in Orange County for the weekend to get acquainted with Gore, 44.

On the ride from the airport to Gore’s home in Fullerton, Manganaro said, “I feel like Ann is the long-lost sister I hadn’t seen in years. It feels like she’s part of my family. . . . She saved my life. I’m here because of her.”

Manganaro was found to have chronic myologenous leukemia in 1993. In January 1995, she learned that only a bone marrow transplant would save her life. “They gave me less than six months to live without it,” Manganaro said.

Meanwhile, Gore, who had signed up as a potential bone marrow donor five years ago, was found to be a perfect match--that one in a million for Manganaro.

The successful surgery was Feb. 3, 1995. Gore’s marrow was withdrawn at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte in the morning and flown to Houston to be transplanted into Manganaro that afternoon at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Shortly afterward, the two strangers began corresponding. To protect their privacy, they were not allowed to know each other’s identities until a year after the surgery, said Jean Blaylock, the National Marrow Donor Registry coordinator who delivered Gore’s marrow the day of the transplant.

As soon as the donor and recipient learned details about each other, they started communicating by phone and fax.

Manganaro and her family praise Gore, who underwent a complicated hysterectomy and caesarean section birth of her daughter, Kathleen, just months before the transplant, for her selfless act.

Gore said what she did was not so heroic.

“If you walked by a pool and saw a child drowning, would you sit there and think about it? No,” Gore said. “You get in and yank him out.”