TV show host Oprah Winfrey recently gave a gift to her studio guests — a thousand dollars, a video camera, and instructions to give the money away to someone who needed it. One of the recipients is a Creston woman. Her husband, Tony Gross, says he was at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines last week.
His wife was diagnosed two weeks ago with leukemia and she’s had five days of chemotherapy. He was walking through the lobby when a strange woman asked to film him, and gave him fifty dollars. Gross says he told them about his wife then, and their two sons…and “she handed me another fifty dollars.” He wanted them to meet his wife, so he took the women up to her room and made introductions.
They filmed her for ten minutes or so, politely left but came back saying they couldn’t think of anybody else they wanted to give the money to, so they gave her the rest of the money they had, 250-dollars. He says they were surprised and grateful.
Gross says they’ll be using that money to pay bills because his wife will be off work for some time. They’ve learned Vicki Gross has a rare genetic condition called a “Philadelphia chromosome” which means there’s a low chance of remission from the disease, and a high likelihood of relapse. She’ll need a bone-marrow transplant.
He says the three women been at the hospital all day and hadn’t found anyone to give the money to, so they decided to give the money to the next person they saw in the hospital lobby, and he was that person. Gross says one of the women was from Waukee and another was from Grimes and he’s not sure if his segment will air on the Oprah program or not.