New York Hospital to Host Gift of Life Marrow Donor Drive for School Teacher with Leukemia

Patient's lifesaving match is likely to be someone of Italian/Sicilian, Polish or Ukrainian ancestry. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) June 26, 2018 - The Flushing (N.Y.) Hospital Medical Center (FHMC) is hoping to make a miracle happen next week. FHMC will hold a donor recruitment drive on behalf of Gift of Life Marrow Registry to find a life-saving match for Flushing native Carolyn Inzirillo, who is battling leukemia.

Inzirillo, 34, grew up in Flushing, where she attended St. Mel’s Catholic School and where her parents both worked for many years as nurses at FHMC. Her family moved to Orlando when she was 12, and she graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. She is a first grade teacher in Orlando and has also taught kindergarten and second grade.

Gift of Life, based in Boca Raton, Fla., is determined to find Inzirillo’s match and is leading a national donor recruitment program in New York and elsewhere. In partnering with Gift of Life, FHMC hopes to help the daughter of its longtime, beloved staffers, by holding a swab drive on June 26, 2018 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. FHMC volunteers will ask people to do a simple cheek swab to determine if a match for Inzirillo can be found.

Inzirillo's world was turned upside down in 2014 when she was diagnosed with leukemia. For two years she was unable to work as she underwent an intense five-month chemotherapy regimen, then multiple surgeries and 18 months of maintenance chemo treatments.

She fought back and appeared to be winning; but this February doctors said the cancer had returned. Now Inzirillo’s only hope of a cure is a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, none of her family members nor anyone in the worldwide registry are a match.

Because matching factors are inherited, her savior is likely to be someone of Italian/Sicilian, Polish or Ukrainian ancestry, or some combination of these, so FHMC’s location in the culturally diverse borough could be critical.

For more details or to arrange an interview about this lifesaving campaign, please contact Joe Berkofsky at Puder PR, at joe ( @ ) puderpr dot com dot

About Gift of Life Marrow Registry
Gift of Life Marrow Registry is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. The organization, established in 1991, is dedicated to saving lives and facilitating bone marrow and blood stem cell transplants for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood-related diseases. To learn more about Gift of Life, visit www.giftoflife.org .

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