Blood drive Monday to honor Marshfield teen who battled leukemia

Forty-eight blood transfusions have given Morgan Green an intimate relationship with the process.

But before her 2020 leukemia diagnosis and painstaking chemotherapy, blood donation wasn't in the Marshfield teenager's purview.

Green was a hard-throwing pitcher at Marshfield High School before she was thrown a life-altering curveball, a hardship that rallied the Webster County community.

A stroke later compounded Green's recovery. She battles paralysis on the left side of her body and has a hand-sized prosthetic in her skull – but she is still aiming for a return to diamond.

Green's softball career was derailed, but her perspective has broadened.

"When you're a younger kid, you don't realize how important blood donation is," said Green, who battled acute myelogenous leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. "It saves lives."

Green will be front and center Monday for a Community Blood Center of the Ozarks blood drive at Mouery's Flooring in Springfield, a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. event in her honor.

Community Blood Center of the Ozarks is giving $5 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for each blood donation. Donors will also receive a free T-shirt and two free tickets to Dickerson Park Zoo, while supplies last.

The Marshfield softball team was among the first to pledge their blood donations.

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"Almost 40 percent of the population is eligible to give blood, yet only 3 to 5 percent actually donate," said Michelle Teter, a spokeswoman for Community Blood Center of the Ozarks. "This is a great time for first-time donors to step up and give life to their community.

"The most common reason that someone does not donate blood is because they've never been asked."

Moeury's Flooring, which is also donating portions of its store's sales throughout the month of August to St. Jude, has long supported the Green family.

Green's mother, Andrea Green, is the store's showroom manager. She vividly remembers the day she received the news of her daughter's diagnosis.

After feeling sluggish during a 2020 summer softball tournament – Morgan Green said she blacked out after hitting a double – it was believed that she might have been experiencing a bout of COVID-19.

After a series of tests, the Greens were given much grimmer news than they anticipated.

"After standard COVID testing, the doctor asks 'Do you got a minute?'" Andrea Green recalled. "Morgan had leukemia in her blood."

Green was admitted to Mercy Hospital the first evening before spending the next seven months at St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Memphis.

After several rounds of chemotherapy, Green went into remission before suffering a meningitis-fueled stroke a few months later, nearly killing the teen.

Today, Green enjoys a robust social life, a full-time job, a driver's license and hopes to be physically able to enjoy one last season of high school softball this fall.

She was the Marshfield baseball team's manager last season.

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"I've been feeling a lot more normal lately," Green said. "It was definitely an adjustment going back."

Her lively personality is still intact.

"I didn't have a filter before the stroke," Green said. "Now with the prosthetic and my frontal lobe, I really don't have a filter."

Local hospital usage has reportedly trended higher in the summer months, but blood donations have declined. Monday's blood drive at Moeury's Flooring aims to boost the latter.

"Blood donations are one of the most basic ways you can serve and give back to your community, not to mention, save lives," said Rick Mouery, store owner.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Mouery's Flooring to host blood drive for teen who battled leukemia