Most people, when they receive a text which was not meant for them, would ignore it. If not, they might send a simple message back saying: “sorry, wrong number” and then forget about it, but not Tony Wood. After receiving a random message from a complete stranger, he decided to do something a little different.
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Rather than just simply ignoring the text or sending a quick reply, he decided to send a funny response back to the stranger. He even asked his family for advice before sending it. He had nothing to lose, after all. Little did Wood know, that his response to the mystery person would end up saving his child’s life…
Mystery Message
In 2018, Tony Wood (pictured below) from Tennessee, was enjoying a quiet night at home with his children, when he received a text from a number he did not recognise. As a realtor, he was well accustomed to receiving messages and calls from strangers.
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He presumed that the message would be from a buyer that he hadn’t yet come across. However, when he started reading the message, he realised that this must have been an accidental message. It just didn’t make sense.
Seeking Advice
The message was from a young woman who wanted an opinion on a dress she was trying on. She had accidentally sent Wood two photos of herself wearing an elegant, floor-length gown. She asked how the dress looked on her. This was obviously intended for a friend or family member.
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It looked as if this young woman was preparing for a glamorous event, perhaps a prom or wedding. She was clearly seeking approval from a family member or friend, which this father of six couldn’t provide. Instead, Wood decided to have a little fun with the young lady who had texted him.
Approval From The Kids
With the intention of providing some amusement for this woman, Wood came up with a great idea. He showed his kids the photos and asked them for their opinion on the dress. The kids instantly took a liking to the dress and all thought it looked great on the young woman.
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Wood then asked his kids to all gather together so that he could take a picture of them. They all gave the young lady a “thumbs up” on the beautiful dress. Wood then sent this picture to the mystery woman. Wood and the kids eagerly anticipated her reaction. Little did they know, this simple act of kindness would end up having quite the impact.
Moving On
Wood hadn’t actually expected to receive a response to the photo. He just wanted to make a stranger’s day. There is nothing quite like a random act of kindness from a stranger. On the other hand, his children were very eager for a response!
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Unfortunately, after waiting hours for a response, it didn’t look like Wood and the kids would receive one. The family carried on with their lives and forgot all about this mystery woman and the message. Then, several weeks later, Wood saw something online which made him do a double-take…
A Surprise
Several weeks had passed since Wood had received the message. He and his children assumed that they would never hear back from her, since it had been such a long time. They were wrong about this, however.
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Wood was an avid Twitter and Facebook user, since social media is a vital platform when it comes to promoting your business. One day, as he was scrolling through Twitter, he saw something that made him stop in his tracks. He saw that a woman called Mandi Miller (seen above) had posted the photo of his kids. It also included images of the dress and pictures of the messages.
Twitter Famous
Miller had also included a caption with her post, which helped explain the mystery to Tony Wood. The mystery woman who had texted Wood was Miller’s friend Syd, who felt too embarrassed to reply. At this point, everything was starting to make sense to this father of six.
Mandi Miller/Twitter
However, the surprises did not end there! Miller had pinned the tweet to her page, since it had accumulated over 170,000 retweets! It had also received 680,000 likes and over 500 comments. “Oh, this is cool! The kids are Twitter famous,” Wood said. This was even better than receiving a reply! The father of six decided to reach out again, this time to Miller.
The Story Doesn’t End Here
Tony felt that it was appropriate to say hello. He tweeted a response to Miller, introducing himself as the father of the children in the picture. He also mentioned how funny it was that he had just stumbled across this tweet.
Mandi Miller/Twitter
Had the story ended there, it would be a lovely story, one to tell the grandkids. This isn’t something that happens all that often, after all. However, the story certainly doesn’t end here. This response led to slightly more impactful results…
Absent Family Members
In his message to Mandi Miller, Wood also revealed something about his family, which even his closest friends did not know. What you may not have realised from looking at the picture of his children, is that two of his family members were missing from the picture, his six-year-old son, Kaizler, and his wife, Rachel. The reason for this is that they were both at the hospital when Wood received this text from Syd.
The weight of what was going on with Wood’s family was part of the reason that he wanted to make a stranger smile. Perhaps they were going through something too and needed cheering up. Even during his darkest moments, he wanted to try and bring some positivity to the world. Of course, Miller wanted to know more about why little Kaizler was in hospital…
Mystery Illness
Back in 2015, little Kaizler Wood had started experiencing constant tiredness and suffered from a fever that wasn’t going away. Initially, Kaizler’s parents assumed that he just had a severe case of the flu and that it would soon pass. However, over the following weeks, his symptoms worsened. It was at this point that they decided to take Kaizler to a paediatrician to find out what was wrong.
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After close examination, the doctor at the hospital could not determine the cause of Kaizler’s symptoms. When they received the test results, there was still no clarity. He tested negative for both the flu and an ear infection, which meant that they were back to square one.
Blood Tests
In order to find out more with regard to Kaizler’s illness, the doctor asked his parents to bring him in, so that they could run some blood tests. Meanwhile, Wood and Rachel were anxious to find out what was wrong with Kaizler. They had to know.
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Kaizler had always been such a happy child, always so full of life. However, when his illness struck, they were lucky if they were able to get him out of bed. It was clear to Tony Wood and his wife that something bad was happening to their little boy. When the results of the blood test came back, the doctor revealed something to them that would change the Wood family forever…
A Worrying Phone Call
Soon afterwards, Tony and Rachel received a phone call. It was the hospital, letting them know that Kaizler needed to return as soon as possible. His doctor thought that Kaizler could be anaemic, have a terrible infection, or perhaps something worse. “They told us that he either had a severe viral infection, or he had Leukaemia,” Tony said. “We have never prayed so hard for a severe viral infection in our lives.”
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As you can imagine, the Woods were devastated and absolutely terrified. They couldn’t stand the thought of their lovely little boy being that unwell. The timing of the call couldn’t have been worse – it was just days before Christmas. This was meant to be a time of happiness and celebration. Worried sick, the Woods began to pray for a Christmas miracle.
A Devastating Blow
On December 23rd, Tony and Rachel sat in the office of their son’s doctor. She gave him Kaizler’s diagnosis. This wasn’t just any old virus, it turned out that Kaizler did, in fact, have Leukaemia. This was an absolutely devastating blow for the family.
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Kaizler’s parents decided there and then, that they would not waste any time feeling sorry for themselves. They were going to embrace this illness head on and fight it with everything they had. They refused to give up hope. They felt confident that their little Kaizler would be able to beat the disease, provided that he had access to proper treatment.
Hope
While Wood and his family were, of course, devastated to find out about their son’s condition, they had faith that everything would ultimately turn out for the best. Kaizler had never once been sick before all of this happened. They decided to leave it in the hands of God.
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“Through it all though, we know God is with us,” Wood said. “He has shown himself to us on several occasions, and we trust that He will pull us through.” Wood’s prayers were soon answered, just not in the way that he expected…
Collective Prayer
Soon after finding out about their son’s illness, Tony and his wife set up a Facebook page called “Prayers for Kaizler.” The Woods were an incredibly spiritual couple. They hope that perhaps with enough prayers, Kaizler’s situation might be helped.
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In setting up this page, the family ended up receiving a lot more than just prayers. It all started when, one day, another stranger joined the page and went one step further in supporting the family. What the Wood family did not realise is that they were actually known to this stranger.
Gaining Attention
Wood also shared this page on his Twitter account in order that it might reach as many people as possible. In the days after he shared it, plenty of people on Twitter said that they had joined the group with their Facebook profiles.
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One of the people that reached out to Wood on Twitter was a user called @iluminaughty. This user didn’t have a picture on their profile and included little to no details about their personal life. Little did Wood know, that this stranger would end up helping them in an incredible way.
Sharing The Link
On their Twitter account, @iluminaughty decided to try and help the family to raise as much money as possible. After contacting Tony Wood the day before, this stranger tweeted a link to the GoFundMe page which the family had set up in order to help cover Kaizler’s medical expenses.
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While Wood and Rachel weren’t entirely sure who this person was, they knew that they had good intentions. Shortly after this mysterious user sent out the link, they made a strange request to the Wood family. This request would reveal to the Wood family that there was more to this user than met the eye.
Thumbs Up
After publishing this tweet, @iluminaughty asked Tony to send a photo of little Kaizler with his thumbs up. This was because the user had remembered the photo of the other Woods children with their thumbs up that had previously gone viral. “So I thanked him for his consideration and posted a picture of Kaizler giving a thumbs up,” Wood said.
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Of course, @iluminaughty was not the only one who remembered the viral tweet from Mandi Miller. However, they seem to be the only ones who put two and two together. That is, until Wood shared the picture he sent to @iluminaughty in a post. It wasn’t long before others were requesting pictures of Kaizler giving them a thumbs up. At this point, things really started to pick up.
More Attention
After Tony Wood shared the first photo of little Kaizler giving a thumbs up, the family went viral once again. Initially, the family hadn’t been too bothered about their viral fame. “We told the kids they were Twitter famous and, while they thought that was cool, we didn’t get a big response, mostly because they don’t exactly know what Twitter is,” Wood said.
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This time around, however, the stakes were slightly higher. They hoped that if they garnered enough attention online, this would result in more donations on the GoFundMe page. This is exactly what happened. “What really shocked us was the growth of our GoFundMe account,” Wood recalled.
More Donations
After Tony Wood shared the photo of Kaizler giving a thumbs up, everything started to blow up: his Twitter account, the Facebook group and, most importantly, the GoFundMePage. In just a few hours, the donations increased by a significant amount. “I remember tweeting about how the GoFundMe had received an extra $1,000! We were so excited – that $1,000 was going to be a BIG deal for us in our current situation,” Wood said.
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This mysterious user had helped them out in a huge way, whether that had been their intention or not. To think, it all started when @iluminaughty saw the posts about the wrong number text! Believe it or not, it gets even better…
The Kindness Of Strangers
The day after sharing the photo of Kaizler @iluminaughty had requested, the Woods felt overwhelmed with what had happened. In just 24 hours, the total amount of money in Kaizler’s GoFundMe had more than doubled. The family could not quite believe the generosity of strangers!
Thanks to @iluminaughty’s request, the family raised a whopping $10,000 overnight! Treatments for Leukaemia are hugely expensive. Without this incredible generosity from the online community, the family would have struggled to get the funds together to pay for little Kaizler’s treatment.
A Lot Of Support
While the internet certainly does have its downfalls, it is incredible when it comes to situations like this. The GoFundMe page ended up accumulating over $60,000 in donations, despite the fact that the goal was set at $10,000.
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In addition to this, thousands of kind messages of support poured in. Many claimed that they had arrived at the page after seeing the original viral posts about the wrong number text! It wasn’t long before the mainstream media had picked up the story!
Media Coverage
After this story received so much attention online, media outlets around the world wanted to cover this story. “I can’t even begin to tell you what this means to us, what this means for us,” Tony told one publication. As you might imagine, the media attention meant even more donations for the family.
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“We have an amazing support of friends and family. The prayers have been nonstop, people have given their time and energy to help us in whatever ways they can,” he continued. “I am humbled by the generosity and outpouring of love we have received by the people we know, and by the people we’ve never even met.”
Leaving Real Estate Behind
As previously mentioned, Tony was working as a real estate agent before all of this began. He has since left this profession, with the intention of returning to the “multiple job life,” as he referred to it as, on his Twitter account.
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Tony had a lot on his plate, between helping his wife raise six children and helping Kaizler navigate through his illness. Wood found that it was just too much of a challenge to manage all of this on top of a real estate business. We don’t blame him! However, he hasn’t yet changed his Twitter bio to reflect his departure from the real estate industry. Perhaps he plans to return to it one day!
Secret Identity
Over time, the Woods family did find out more information, with regard to the identity of @iluminaughty, the mysterious Twitter user who had asked for the photo of Kaizler. During an interview, Tony Wood stated that the stranger was a “kind man from India,” but refused to comment further.
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This stranger is obviously keen to keep a low profile, hence Tony did not disclose any more information. After his username became famous as a result of his role in the Woods’ story, he changed his name to @_Hedge. Exactly what this man did to help the Wood family remains unclear, but his Twitter bio does at least shed a little bit of light on his intentions. “Stop Hating, Start Loving,” it reads.
The Final Dose
Back in March 2019, Wood updated the GoFundMe page with a really incredible update: “Just a few more clinics, and Kaizler gets to take his last dose of chemo (God willing that there isn’t a relapse).” Let’s hope that this will be the last treatment he has to endure! If things hadn’t happened in the way that they did, the Wood family would very likely have incurred huge amounts of debt in order to finance Kaizler’s treatment. What an amazing turn of events!
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Furthermore, the chemo treatment seems to have worked for little Kaizler! The picture above was taken following his last treatment. He looks as if he is ready to take on the world! Without the generosity of the strangers who contributed to the cause, it might have been a different story altogether.