A 10-year-old boy from Torrance made history as the youngest stem cell donor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, giving his father a second chance at life.
There’s nothing more that Nick Mondek loves more than being a dad. But in 2022, an aggressive form of acute myeloid leukemia put the then 45-year-old on his deathbed. “I’m thinking about my sons, and I’m thinking about how I’m not ready to move on yet,” Mondek said.
Thankfully, his older brother Dave was a match. Several rounds of chemotherapy erased Mondek’s cancerous cells and replaced them with his brother’s. By the end of the year, he was able to return to work as an anesthesiologist…