Bone marrow drive for two Newport teachers with rare blood syndrome

January 25, 2016 5:12 pm

By News Staff

Reporting by Ana Bottary

abottary@abc6.com

Two Newport teachers are both battling a rare syndrome. Now, people are gathering at Claiborne Pell Elementary School to see if they might be a bone marrow match to save the teachers’ lives.

ABC6 spoke with friends and co-workers of Jamie Crowley and Maureen Martin to learn more about their journey.

Jamie Crowley, a Newport native, has stayed close to his roots, raising a family in the city and becoming the principal of Thompson Middle School a little over six years ago.

Maureen Martin is secretary to the principal at Rogers High School. The single mother described as a hard worker, and has been with the school system for more than 10 years.

The two have more in common than just working for the Newport public school system. Back in December, just a few weeks apart, they both received life-changing news.

They were diagnosed with Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare blood syndrome.

Friends and co-workers say neither have let the diagnosis get in the way of their personal or professional optimism.

"Maureen never shows you she is going through anything. Maureen is positive person. Always had been always will be," said Trisha Lentz, a friend and co-worker.

"Sense of community. I would say that’s a big word for Jamie, caring and community," said Rogers High School Principal, Jeff Goss.

There are fewer than 200,000 cases of MDS in the United States each year. Having two people from the same area diagnosed within such a short period of time is something the Rhode Island Blood Center does not see often.

"I don’t know if we have seen this before, unfortunately, that this has happened around the same time," said Christina Balboni of the RI Blood Center.

The two each need a bone marrow transplant which prompted the community to come together Monday, creating a bone marrow registry drive to help find matches.

People ages 18 to 44 fill out paper work and then have their cheek swabbed to add their name to the bone marrow donor registry.

Balboni says even if you are not a match for Maureen or Jamie, there’s still a chance of saving another life.

"There are about 14,000 patients a year that need transplants and, unfortunately, because there’s not enough people on the registry, you can’t make everyone a match. So we really do need to grow the registry, diversify the registry, so every patient in need can find a match," she says.

Between paper work and the cheek swab it takes no longer than 10 minutes to register.