Benjy Hockley, an Oleh from England, and father of 3 young daughters keeps his illness secret from those around him. According to the news site Ynet, recently his situation deteriorated substantially, and his doctors warned that he only has days left to live if new lungs are not found. His family is calling out to other families who have lost their loved ones: “Give Benjy a chance to live.” Even Chief Rabbi Lau has made an exceptional plea for lung donors for Benjy to come forward.
Hockley, 34, was a real-estate analyst in London. He moved to Israel with his wife Debra in 2009, and the two of them now have 3 young daughters. He began to develop more pronounced symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis, which he was born with, in the last few years.
Despite the many treatments and visits to hospitals, Hockley hid his illness from his relatives. “He refused to stop his life because of the disease, “ tells his brother Josh. “He believes at any given moment there is someone in worse condition than he is. He refuses to let the disease rule over him and refuses to give into it.”
Before Purim, he had further deterioration of his condition, when his breathing became severely impacted. He was hospitalized in critical condition since then, and doctors warn that without an urgent lung transplant, he will not survive more than another few days.
His family urges the community to help and see if they can be the donor that saves a life. They ask people to “Do a mitzvah and save someone’s life.”
Name for Tehillim is Binyamin Yitzchok Yosef Leib Ben Feiga.
(Source: Onlysimchas)
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7 Responses
I don’t understand the request. Are they asking for a lung from a live donor? As far as I know cystic fibrosis sufferers receive a heart/lung transplant which obviously can only come from a dead person. However if this particular person only requires a lung, I have never heard of a live person donating one of their lungs, so the request here is very unclear.
May Benjy have a Refuah Shelema.
Is it possible for a live person to donate part of their lung? (Similar to donating a kidney)
#1 and #2, It says “His family is calling out to other families who have lost their loved ones“
It is possible to donate a lobe (part of a lung), but it is usually not practiced anymore being that it puts the donor at high risk for infection. In addition, with Cystic Fibrosis it is not recommended, being that the transplanted lobe is very likely to become infected from the other parts of the CF lungs.
May Hashem send a Refuah Sheleima to Binyomin Yitzchok Yosef Leib Ben Feiga.
The request is for more people to sign up to donate organs. The quote below is from The Times of Israel:
“So what can you do? You can sign the ADI donor card (or the American version, the HOD Society card) and encourage friends and family to sign as well. Since Benjy’s condition worsened, there have been several potential donors who died but who had not made provisions while alive to allow their organs to be harvested in order to save lives. While there are halakhic debates about determining the moment of death, there is a broad consensus that once a potential donor has died, it is permissible – and a mitzva – to use those organs to save a life. Chief Rabbi Lau has in fact made a special appeal on Benjy’s behalf: It takes about 5 minutes to fill out an ADI or HODS card. You can even specify your preferred halakhic position on the determination of death – if you don’t have one, consult a halakhic authority you trust. Encourage others to do the same. Israel, unfortunately, has a low rate of dead donors, even if its has an impressively high rate of blood donation. Our main obstacle is education, not lack of compassion.”
CF_Society
You say it’s not practiced anymore. When did a live person ever donate a lobe to a sick person? Never heard of such a thing. Moreover with CF patients, the transplant is heart/ lung so the request seems to be for a dead person’s organs. I don’t see how making an appeal on YW for a dead person’s organ can help anyone.
CF patients do NOT always have a heart/lung transplant, they can receive bilateral lung-only transplants. There had been no marked difference in the 5 year survival rate of heart/lung vs. lung only so nowadays there are many fewer dual organ transplants performed on CF patients. There are transplant centers that will perform a living-related donor transplant as a last resort where they transplant a single lobe from 2 donors to the patient. All lung transplants for CF patients are problematic as the infections also colonize the upper airway and eventually spread to the transplanted lungs.