Teacher's friends hope to help others find the marrow they need

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By LAURA CHAPMAN / Lincoln Journal Star

As the school year was starting in August, Steffanie Roach had routine blood work done.

Her doctor called that night.

The results were abnormal.

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Bone marrow drive. Steffanie Roach with her daughter Caeli. (courtesy photo)

Bone marrow drive. Steffanie Roach with her daughter Caeli. (courtesy photo)

Bone marrow drive

When: 2-6 p.m. Thursday

Where: Christ Lutheran Church, 4325 Sumner St.

Cost: $25 registration fee

More tests were needed.

And within two days, the Huntington Elementary teacher had a diagnosis — acute myeloid leukemia, or AML.

For the next few months, Roach — with support of her family, friends and 6-year-old daughter Caeli — fought the illness with chemotherapy treatments. She also waited to see if she could find a donor for a bone marrow transplant, which could put her cancer into remission.

Her first donor decided not to go through with the donation.

She found another match right before Christmas.

“The best Christmas gift ever,” Roach said.

Roach will go to Omaha soon to have another round of chemotherapy and prepare for her transplant, likely by the end of January.

Although Roach found a donor, her friends want to educate Lincoln about bone marrow transplants and help others find donors.

They’re holding a bone marrow drive from 2 to 6 p.m. Thursday to get people registered in the National Marrow Donor Program. The drive is at Christ Lutheran Church, 4325 Sumner St., in Roach’s honor.

Participants will have their cheek swabbed to see if they can be added to the registry. They will also need to pay a $25 registration fee. If a person is a match, he or she could become a donor.

Sharon Zumbrunn, a friend of Roach’s and an educational psychology graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said she and other friends began to research the illness and the transplant their friend needed.

“We didn’t realize how difficult it was to find marrow transplants,” she said.

Of the patients in need of marrow transplants, 30 percent find a perfect match in their family, leaving 70 percent in need of an outside donor, according to the program.

Roach found a match after they started planning the event, said Rachel Johnson, who teaches at Huntington and is helping plan the drive.

But they wanted to help others.

“It’s all about teaching people about leukemia and how easy it is to be a donor and what it means to someone’s life,” she said.

Roach said she is impressed with the selflessness of her friends, who want to help others with what they’ve learned.

“I think it’s the best thing a friend could do,” she said.

Zumbrunn is looking forward to getting her cheek swabbed Thursday so she can maybe be a donor — despite the discomfort of having bone marrow cells harvested.

“I have a very low pain tolerance,” Zumbrunn said, “but I would be very honored to be sore for a couple of days to save a couple of people’s lives.”

Through it all, Roach said, her friends, family, doctors, nurses and church have been supportive, making her dinners, helping with work and making the medical processes possible to deal with.

It’s helped her stay optimistic for the future, which Roach hopes includes returning to Huntington next fall after recovering from her transplant.

“Life is seriously so good,” she said. “Even on hard days I have another day with my daughter, I have another day to do whatever needs to be done. I have life.”

Reach Laura Chapman at 473-7223 or lchapman@journalstar.com.