ANDERSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — As Jay Reineke waited anxiously outside the arrival gates at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Thursday afternoon, you could tell he was waiting for someone important.
Along with his wife and two daughters, Reineke was waiting to meet the man who saved his life in person for the first time.
However, their journey to meeting didn't start favorably.
“I remember around the holidays in 2018, around Christmas time, I was having a lot of weird pains in my back," Reineke said.
WATCH: We captured the moment the two embraced for the first time:
In early 2019, Reineke was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma, a rare form of blood cancer.
Reineke started chemotherapy immediately. After seven months, he went into remission.
However, the cancer came back.
“The chemo that I got was pretty damaging, I guess, to the body," Reineke said.
Doctors then tried a stem cell transplant using his own stem cells to try to stop it.
“It’s kind of like doing a soft boot on a computer, just hitting the reset button," Reineke said.
That, too, worked for a short period of time, but the cancer eventually returned again.
“You almost get numb to the bad news a little bit, when it’s the third, fourth time this stuff is back," Reineke said. "But you know, you just figure ‘I’m going to put the gloves back on and get back in the ring.'”
In 2022, doctors said he'd need a stem cell donor.
They quickly found a near-perfect match: a 29-year-old man in Germany.
“Instead of my body regrowing my own immune system this time, it produced, regrew with his immune system," Reineke said.
His recovery was far from easy. Donor cells attacked his body, a brain infection reduced hearing in his right ear and Reineke still deals with neuropathy issues.
“It was quite the roller coaster ride through all that," Reineke said.
But the transplant worked, and Reineke has been cancer-free since.
He said he always wanted to know who the life-saving stranger was, but guidelines imposed a two-year freeze period, meaning neither party could try to figure out who the other was.
After that period ended, Reineke finally learned who his hero was: Leon Weichert.
"I just wanted to reach out and thank the individual that donated and say really 'thanks for saving my life,'" Reineke said.
What started with a thank-you email grew into sending each other care packages with gifts from home, then video calls through Zoom.
“That turned into ‘hey, when can we meet?’" Reineke said.
With the help of Dead Low Brewery, Reineke raised enough money to purchase travel tickets for Weichert to visit.
Despite a missed connecting flight Wednesday night, Weichert finally landed in Cincinnati Thursday afternoon.
“It is really amazing to see now who is this guy? It is pretty fantastic," Weichert said.
Weichert said his wife urged him to join the donor registry back in 2022. He said he was only in the system for a short time before doctors reached out about Reineke's need for a transplant.
Both Weichert and Reineke said they hope their story inspires someone else to register as a donor.
“You may end up saving someone’s life, as he did," Reineke said.
