Paying his tab forward

SCITUATE — Restaurateur John Elkhay has cooked for a U.S. president, hosted a cable TV cooking show, launched some outrageous advertising campaigns and been a fixture on the culinary scene since the 1980s, before Providence had a scene.

Today he runs seven restaurants under his Chow Fun Food Group. He's had hits (the beloved XO Cafe and the groundbreaking Ten Prime Steak and Sushi) and misses (Chinese Laundry).

But he's never, ever been exhausted. Or had no appetite. Or been unable to drink a glass of wine.

When he first found himself not keeping up with his fitness routine last spring, he chalked it up to aging. He's 61, and a hip replacement sometimes made him reluctant to run.

But after a trip to Colorado in July for a family wedding, where he couldn't summon any enthusiasm to eat or drink and needed oxygen to breathe, he was concerned. But it wasn't until August — when he took a walk from his home in Hope and his body froze up, and he dragged himself home in five-foot bursts while holding onto trees — that he headed to The Miriam Hospital's emergency room in an ambulance.

He needed four pints of blood.

"They said I had a blood clot in my lung," Elkhay shared. The normal treatment would be a course of blood thinners.

When a sonogram drew a crowd to his room, he knew something more was up.

There was a mass on his kidney. It was cancerous, said surgeon Dr. Dragan Golijanin.

Then the medical team told him to turn over for a bone marrow biopsy.

"It was all that casual," he recalled. "I was smiling, and I was crying. I hadn't even digested the cancer diagnosis yet."

But he knew he was lucky that seemingly out of nowhere, his kidney cancer had been found. He did not have a blood clot after all.

"All I could think of: Was my son watching out for me?" Elkhay said.

Twelve-year-old Ross Elkhay died of cystic fibrosis 19 years ago.

Golijanin operated a few days later, removed the kidney, and said the cancer had not spread. "He told me he was 96% certain I was cured."

But there was this other concerning issue of Elkhay's low red blood cell count. His hemoglobin was 4.8. Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to organs and tissues and transports carbon dioxide back to the lungs. A normal reading is 13.75 to 17.75. He kept needing more pints of blood.

Then came the second blow. The bone marrow biopsy revealed he had MDS (Myelodysplastic syndrome), a type of blood cancer. He was sent up to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. There, with family around, including his fiancée, Ann Pope, and sister Mary Kupperberg, someone asked what stage his cancer was at.

"They said we don't stage this. The cancer is in your blood," he said.

As he thought about being full of cancer, still processing the horrible news, the medical team told him what was going to happen. He'd have two rounds of chemotherapy. He'd have three injections for seven straight days and then rest for 21 days. Then he'd have a bone marrow transplant. But first they'd have to find a donor.

Elkhay's son Harrison, 34, John's double in appearance and manner, was the first to raise his hand and say, "It's me." But doctors explained that siblings offered the best hope of a perfect match. Siblings share the same genetic codes, whereas a child has only 50% of each parent's genes.

Elkhay thought for sure the match would be his brother Tom, who not only resembles him but is a chef. But it wasn't. Nor was it Mary, who lives nearby.

His perfect match is his oldest brother, Bill, an antique dealer who lives in Florida and shares the fewest sensibilities with John. 

"When we go to dinner, he's like, '16 bucks for a steak?' " laughed Elkhay. "And I go to the most expensive steakhouses in the world for fun."

Growing up in Seekonk, John always wanted to be cool like his brother Bill, who had a Beatles-style mop of hair in the '60s while John's mother made him get a buzz cut.

"I chased after him and always tried to keep up with him and he'd tell me to go home, kid. I really looked up to him."

This is the part of the story that chokes up Elkhay.

"I thought he got tested just to be polite. He's in Florida. They have to have him here.

"But he told me, 'I want to be the guy.'"

Now Bill will have his stem cells "energized" in anticipation of the Dec. 21 bone marrow transplant that will give his brother a 70% chance of a cure. Elkhay will spend 30 days in the hospital following the transplant and then another 100 in isolation at home. Even his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Penny, won't be able to cuddle with him with his immune system suppressed.

Elkhay, a Catholic with strong beliefs, has found comfort in his faith.

"I feel like it's sustaining me. If you asked me three years ago, I'd be scared." The idea of being gone forever is frightening, he admits.

"But I've had a great life. I trust in God. But I'd prefer being here when my vintage 2016 Bordeaux is ready to drink in eight years," he laughed.

He knows he can't control any of it. What he can do, and this is why he spoke out about his illness, is to rally people to give blood.

"I'm now a consumer of blood. People I don't know are giving me blood by donating," he said. "It's all so personal. Some stranger volunteered to give blood to someone they don't know."

"I need to give back."

His Luxe Burger Bar will open its doors to the Rhode Island Blood Center on Wednesday, Nov. 13, to host a blood drive from 3 to 7 p.m. at 5 Memorial Blvd. in Providence. The blood being collected is not for Elkhay, but will go to others in need.

All who wish to donate will receive a gift certificate for a "Build Your Own Burger" and a Blood Orange Margarita for use at a return visit. Those who cannot attend the drive but donate blood at the center can receive a Luxe gift certificate if they give the code 3944.

"My goal is to raise 100 units of blood," he said. Most drives raise 20 pints.

"I want to use my platform to get it done," he said. "There's no reason we can't do this."

Elkhay also knows how lucky he was to find a bone marrow match in his family. Others aren't so lucky.

Learn more about testing to be a donor at bethematch.org.