MANITOWOC (NBC 26) — One Manitowoc Lincoln teacher gave white blood cells to save a cancer patient
- Ten years ago, Michael Longmeyer took a mouth swab before football practice.
- Now a Manitowoc teacher, Longmeyer was matched to a stage four cancer patient.
- Earlier this month, Michael went to Milwaukee to donate white blood cells.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
Would you remember a conversation you had a decade ago? For one teacher at Manitowoc Lincoln, a simple interaction ten years ago turned into an opportunity he had to take.
Michael Longmeyer is a PE teacher and coach at Manitowoc Lincoln High School. Growing up in Manitowoc, he came to teach, but first spent four years at UW Stevens Point where he played football. One day in 2015, before practice, he came across a table with a teammate.
"'Sign up to save lives’,” he recalled. “We kind of looked at each other not knowing exactly what it was at that time and you couldn't walk past it without probably feeling like a terrible person."
They gave some basic information and a mouth swab, then walked away, not thinking much of the encounter. That was until last month.
"I was a 100% match with a person with stage four leukemia,” Longmeyer said. "Then it kind of hit me. Nerves like, 'Oh my god! I hope I don't mess this up'.”
He immediately said he would donate his white blood cells. Less than a month later he told his students he was missing school to travel to Milwaukee for the donation.
"When I saw them again, I had a lot of questions about,” Longemeyer said. “‘How'd it go?' 'Did you save his life?' 'What happened?'.”
"Just so selfless,” said Manitowoc senior, Landon Zick. “Willing to be fatigued for two days he said and come back like it's nothing. I hope to be like that one day."
Even after the operation, Michael doesn't know his recipient yet, but he prays he helped to save a life and hopes one day they can even meet.
"Be a father to his kids if he has them,” Longmeyer said. “Husband to his wife or partner. I've definitely looked at it through a different lens. That's for sure."
Michael says as a mentor he hopes his actions has a lasting effect on kids, just like Landon.
"Something so small, or something so big, that kids want to look up to you and potentially even follow down your path,” Longmeyer said.
