Sachem Cheer Coach Donating Bone Marrow

What started as a simple cheek swab three years ago for Taylor Spindel, has potentially become a life-changing endeavor.

Spindel, supporting an initiative while at SUNY Cortland to help the National Marrow Donor Program, didn’t think anything of it until she got a call in January saying she was a match to help a 26-year old male suffering from leukemia, who is in need of a bone marrow transplant.

“I still can’t believe I’m a match,” she said. “It’s such an amazing opportunity to help save someone’s life. How could I turn that down?”

A Sachem East alum from 2006 and a cheerleading coach at the school now, Spindel said she was nervous at first, but jumped on board once it settled in about 10 minutes after that initial phone call.

“I never had any operations, had never been to a hospital or have been hurt,” she said. “This is all so new to me.”

Spindel’s boyfriend, Sachem North assistant football coach Alex Grimm, then a wide receiver for the Red Dragons at Cortland, said at the time, “It’s so hard to be a match. It’s for a good cause, but you’ll probably never get a call.”

There are over 18.5 million people in the donor registry and the chances are very rare that a call comes through.

Spindel will have the procedure at Stony Brook University Medical Center on Tuesday, February 28. The hospital said they only do one or two of these per year from the registry.

For the past six weeks, Spindel has been having her blood tested regularly to make sure all things line up for the transplant. One test saw 17 tubes of blood drawn.

In the beginning of the testing process, there was always that slight chance that Spindel’s test results didn’t specifically match the requirements. Once she got the call to say it was all official the tears started running.

“I cried, I was so excited,” said Spindel, who is not allowed to known any information about the 26-year old, other than his age and disease. “I started to become so invested in it. I was reading stories of people meeting their donors. I knew that I would be so disappointed if I didn’t turn out to be the match.”