Allan Maki
The Globe and Mail

NHL prospect and Family Praying for Mandi

Jaden Schwartz '10 and his family should be basking in the glow of next month's NHL draft but instead are hoping 22-year-old Mandi Schwartz pulls through in her latest battle against leukemia.

The plans had been made, the flights and hotel rooms booked. The entire Schwartz clan, from parents Rick and Carol, to the kids Mandi, Rylan and Jaden, were ready for the trip to Los Angeles and next month’s NHL entry draft, hopefully to see Jaden Schwartz taken in the early rounds, a dream the entire family shared.

Now the father isn’t sure what will happen. His daughter Mandi, a Yale University hockey player known for her unyielding optimism and training habits, is back in a Regina hospital battling leukemia for the second time in less than two years.

Just 22, Schwartz is in an intensive care unit with pneumonia. At times she needs a breathing tube and is under sedation. On other occasions she wears an oxygen mask and scribbles notes to her parents who take turns stationed at her side.

The first time she fought it off she was so positive. She was doing exercises in her room with the cords still attached to her, said Rick Schwartz. Now she’s worried.

They’re all worried, especially since Schwartz had rebounded so well after first being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December, 2008. Seemingly a beacon of health, Schwartz began to feel tired during her freshman season at Yale. She thought she might have contracted mononucleosis. A blood test revealed something far more sinister. She packed and headed home to Wilcox, Sask.

At the team breakfast before she left, she said, ‘I’ll be fine. Keep me entertained in the hospital. It’s going to be really boring,’ recalled Yale teammate Alyssa Clarke, another small-town Canadian from Donkin, N.S. She’s really an amazing person.

Schwartz underwent five rounds of chemotherapy, spent 130 days in the hospital and, shortly after getting out, went to a rink and skated. She returned to Yale this January and, while she didn’t play hockey, she spent time with her teammates and cheered them on. Some of them even went to Mexico during the recent spring break.

When she came back to school she was working out and started feeling ill again, said Brennan Turner, a former Yale hockey player, Notre Dame Hound '05 and family friend. The cancer had come back.

The hope that fuels the Schwartzs and their friends is that a match can be found and Mandi will undergo bone marrow surgery within the next few months. The better the match, the better the chance the donor’s stem cells will replace the damaged cells. A 10 out of 10 match would also reduce the risk of graft-versus-host response and a life-threatening infection.

All the Schwartzs have had cheek swabs taken to see if they’re a match for Mandi. Jaden came closest at 7 out of 10. A 9 out of 10 match has been found in Germany but the search continues on national and international bone marrow data bases.

There is another possibility, one that an immunologist in New Haven, Conn., is helping the Schwartzs explore. Dr. Ted Collins lost his 26-year-old daughter Natasha to leukemia last year. She was a Yale medical student who decided on a bone marrow transplant knowing her donor was only a partial match. She died from an infection when the donor cells attacked her body. Collins wished his daughter could have had a transplant using cord blood, which has proved much safer.

The cord blood, which comes from a baby’s umbilical cord, offers stem cells that can become any type of cells immune, heart, brain. In the past, doctors have discarded umbilical cords. New research is determining that the stem cells from the blood in the umbilical cord can be stored and used to treat more than 20 diseases.

With cord blood, it doesn’t have to be a perfect match. It’s from a baby. The blood has not had time to mature and be challenged with what the adult cells have seen, explained Collins, who noted how another Yale student, Nigerian-born Suen Adebiyi, had a cord blood transplant five months ago and is doing well. Mandi’s ancestry is Ukrainian, German and Russian. It’s her heritage in her DNA that makes it difficult for her to find a perfect bone marrow donor. We’ll be going to Germany to set up searches there.

A website http://www.becomemandishero.org has been established for expectant mothers to learn about donating their cord blood after their babies are born. It’s a possibility, however miraculous, the Schwartzs cling to as their world loses its normalcy.

Two of Mandi’s teammates from Yale are here to help us and make meals, said the father. I’ve taken time off my job and Carol has been off for two weeks. One of us is always near Mandi.The other stuff [the trip to L.A, the NHL draft]? I’ve got to figure that out. I just don’t know.


www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/nhl-prospect-and-family-praying-for-mandi/article1561393/

Mandi continues to be an inspiration and hero for her family, friends and all of our Notre Dame Hounds.

Now Mandi needs a hero. Could it be you?

For more information on how YOU can be Mandi's hero click the following link. All of the information you will need is included on Mandi's webpage.

www.becomemyhero.org/mandi_schwartz/mandi_card.html

Mandi generously gave of her time this past winter and agreed to be one of our feature stories in our inaugaural "The Notre Dame Experience magazine". Mandi's story is entitled "Never Lose Heart" and appears on page 5. To read about Mandi's journey click the following link.

www.notredame.sk.ca/experiences/NDExperience01.pdf

If there was ever a time for the Notre Dame family to pull together and help, it's NOW!

"To Him Who Does What in Him Lies, God Will Not Deny His Grace"