Potential lifesavers get tested for girl

While 8-year-old Kaitlyn Rochel lay battling leukemia in New York University Medical Center, nearly a thousand people converged on Wantagh High School on Saturday, hoping to save her life or someone else's.

For the second time, the Wantagh girl needs a bone-marrow transplant to combat the cancer she's fought since she was 3.

In the school gymnasium, where a sign read "Home of the Warriors," Jonathan Sguigna was among a steady stream of people who had their cheeks swabbed to see if they were a match to be a donor.

It took only a few minutes to spur what Kaitlyn's family hopes will lead to a long life of memories. "I want to save someone's life if I can," said the Seaford resident, who like many tested, never met the girl.

Kaitlyn's mother, Carolyn, 38, wore a T-shirt with her two daughters' pictures on it, and took in the crowd, overwhelmed by the outpouring. Someone in the room might save her daughter's life.

Kaitlyn had been diagnosed with leukemia, which is caused by unhealthy bone marrow, when she was 3. In 2010, her younger sister, Lauren, now 6, donated her bone marrow to Kaitlyn. The family believed the ordeal was over.

Last fall, the cancer returned. "It was devastating," Rochel said, tearing as she recalled Kaitlyn's reaction: " 'Why me? Why does this have to happen again?' "

Chemotherapy resumed. With her immune system compromised by radiation, Kaitlyn has been hospitalized. "She misses playing soccer. She misses being in school," Rochel said. She misses playing dolls at home with Lauren.

Her doctors have said she needs a marrow transplant, hopefully by March, Rochel said. If no donor is found by then, she said, "it's not good."

Only four in 10 people needing a bone-marrow transplant find one in time, said Erika Toto, a donor coordinator for DKMS, an international bone marrow donation group that is testing the swabs. Other potential donors can be mailed home testing kits through dkmsamericas.org/register.

Debbie Amato of Farmingdale was volunteering at a bake sale at the school to help DKMS pay for processing the swabs. Joining her was her 9-year-old son, Jake, who received a bone-marrow transplant in 2010. So far, the cancer hasn't returned.

"Jake is here because somebody got swabbed," Amato said.