Finding a life-saving match

***FOR THE RECORD: The Sept. 4 story “Finding a life-saving match” incorrectly identified the date of a bone-marrow donor drive. The drive is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 13.***

Lisa Mottesi may live in New Jersey, but when she fell ill with a form of leukemia this summer, her Huntington Beach friends and family stepped in to help out. In need of a bone marrow transplant but without a sibling who matches her, Mottesi must hope for the best.

That’s why on Saturday a group of committed volunteers who know Mottesi are hosting a bone marrow drive aimed at identifying as many potential matches as possible for the registered nurse and mother of three.

Mottesi grew up in Huntington Beach and graduated from Marina High School along with her now-husband, Marcelo Mottesi.

The outpouring of support for Mottesi has been massive, said Debra Squicciarini, Mottesi’s sister-in-law who leads the core volunteer group. She said they hope to make the donor drive, as well as a bake sale fundraiser for the donor registry, as massive as possible.

“We have 30 core volunteers of friends and family,” she said. “Some of my friends in the neighborhood have been sending out fliers, we’re going to be posting them on Main Street. We’re getting a whole lot of feedback.”

Mottesi, who has traveled to Thailand and the Dominican Republic as a volunteer nurse, has had a powerful effect on the people she’s met, her husband said.

“She’s always been the type of person in front of the line to help somebody else. She’s traveled all over the world doing it. The support we’ve gotten both here [New Jersey] and California is really a testament to her.”

Because a match for any one person is so rare outside of the immediate family, the information on donors’ bone marrow go into a database run by the nonprofit DKMS, which already has 1.7 million registered donors. If this weekend’s potential donors don’t help Mottesi, they might help someone else, according to the charity. What’s it take to get tested for compatibility? Not much, Marcelo Mottesi said.

“It’s just a cotton swab on your cheek,” he said. “Even for the transplant itself, there are different ways of doing it, from the very easy, to at worst it’ll cause some discomfort for a couple of days — and that could save someone’s life.”

A little more than 1% of donors actually end up donating cells after they go through the donor screening, according to a news release by DKMS Americas.

How does the family handle the turmoil of a mother with a serious illness?

“You rely on your family, you rely on your friends, rely on your faith in God and trust everything is in his hands,” Marcelo Mottesi said. “My wife is an extremely resilient and positive person, and she’s not going to let this beat her.”

IF YOU GO

The bone marrow testing drive will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Christian Church, 1207 Main St. Donors must be in good health and ages 18 to 55. To make a donation, go to www.dkmsamericas.org.

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes.com.