Cancer survivor reunited with life-saving donor

At his home in Desert Hot Springs, Allen Halla looks strong and healthy – but that wasn’t always the case.

Just after two planes struck the World Trade Center in New York in September of 2001, Allen Halla was diagnosed with Leukemia. He was just 21 years old. His son, was just a year old.

After five years of pills the blood cancer spread to his spine. Doctors told him his only chance was chemotherapy and radiation in such high doses it would not only kill the cancer, but also deplete his healthy stem cells. At the end of the treatment he would need new stem cells from a donor who would have to be a genetic match.

There was a 50-50 chance the process would kill him.

“I think it’s like a one-in-a-million chance,” said Halla at his home on a sunny April afternoon. “It’s like winning the lotto more than once.”

In fact, only two out of the11 patients who received stem cell transplants at the same time as Halla in 2007 are still alive today.

Halla not only survived, but years later received a special letter from Germany.

It was from Undine Etlze – his genetic twin, and the woman who’s donation saved his life. It took two years for Etlze to get the name of the American who received the donation, get his address and then to learn English.

Halla and Etlze were shocked when they finally saw each other. Halla is of Czechoslovakian and Philippino descent.

“I can’t believe it because he is much darker than (me),” Etlze said. “I don’t know why we are genetic twins.”

Since she’s given him a new life, Halla is showing her a new world. Etlze and her husband have been to visit twice – meeting the doctor who united them and then hitting the strip in Las Vegas.

“There’s somebody out there – God – who’s watching over us and he found somebody for me,” Halla said.

Somebody to help him regain the strength to raise a family and the opportunity to get a new one.