{"id":68898,"date":"2025-12-23T21:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T21:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68898\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T21:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T21:55:11","slug":"scranton-man-gives-stem-cells-in-late-eddie-kaufmans-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68898\/","title":{"rendered":"Scranton man gives stem cells in late Eddie Kaufman’s honor"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Mid Valley High School graduate Eddie Kaufman died of cancer in October, he left behind a legacy as a family member, friend, athlete and mentor.<\/p>\n

The former Throop resident also left a more tangible gift. During events held earlier this year to find a blood stem cell donor for Kaufman, volunteers had their cheeks swabbed to see if they were a match. One of those volunteers donated stem cells in Kaufman\u2019s memory to a man he matched with.<\/p>\n

Cody Petcavage and his wife, McKenzie, had their cheeks swabbed in hope of helping Kaufman.<\/p>\n

Cody, 28, of Scranton, didn\u2019t know Kaufman well, but they were both athletes and attended Mid Valley schools.<\/p>\n

\"CodyCody Petcavage\u2014a Mid Valley alumnus and baseball player\u2014 donated stem cells to a 67-year-old man slated to have the cells transplanted on Christmas Eve. Petcavage was originally hoping to be a match for such a transplant for his friend Eddie Kaufman. Kaufman passed away in October and now Petcavage is making the donation in memory of his friend. (SUBMITTED)<\/p>\n

The results of more than 5,000 people swabbed during those events were registered with the National Marrow Donor Program.<\/p>\n

Brian Kaufman, Eddie\u2019s father, said at the time he hoped their efforts would mean a match for his son, but he was aware the events also were getting people on the registry to potentially help others.<\/p>\n

Petcavage was focused on helping Kaufman and put the registry out of his mind.<\/p>\n

Then in October, he received a call from the donor program saying he was a potential match for a 67-year-old Houston man who needed a stem cell transplant.<\/p>\n

Petcavage didn\u2019t think twice before saying \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/p>\n

Eddie Kaufman bats for Mid Valley during a game against Holy Cross during his high school time. (TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)\n<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/p>\n

Eddie Kaufman stared as a golfer for Mid Valley High School. (TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)\n<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/p>\n

Brian Kaufman takes time for a photo with cutouts of his son Eddie Kaufman during his high school years. Eddie Kaufman, now a college sophomore is battling leukemia. (GERI GIBBONS\/STAFF PHOTO)\n<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

In Eddie Kaufman threw out a ceremonial first pitch for the Philadelphia Phillies. Kaufman lost his battle to leukemia on Tuesday. (SUBMITTED)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 4<\/p>\n

Eddie Kaufman bats for Mid Valley during a game against Holy Cross during his high school time. (TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

He first participated in an hourlong phone call and filled out a questionnaire.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that phone call I was scheduled for blood work to confirm I was a match, which was extremely quick and easy,\u201d he said. \u201cI spent maybe a total of 30 minutes at a facility 10 minutes from my house. Went to work right after.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, he went for a physical and another round of blood testing and was assigned a caseworker.<\/p>\n

Petcavage said not only did the donation allow him to help someone else, it didn\u2019t cost him anything.<\/p>\n

While preparing for the donation, on Nov. 17, the Petcavages were also gifted with a new life, their daughter Frankie.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 25, Petcavage went through his last round of testing. On Dec. 3, the caseworker reached out to him to make final plans.<\/p>\n

Last week, he received five filgrastim shots to boost stem cell growth. Staff from the local blood center came to his workplace to administer one of the shots.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Petcavage left from Avoca for Houston, where the donation took place.<\/p>\n

The donor registry paid for everything, including food, hotel and transportation.<\/p>\n

On Monday, he arrived at the blood center at 7 a.m., had two IVs inserted into each arm and was there for about five hours.<\/p>\n

He explained that one IV line took blood from his body and collected the stem cells. The other IV then put blood back into his body.<\/p>\n

He had no side effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I really would like to come out of this is hopefully more and more people could get tested, get that call like I did, feel the incredible feeling you get knowing you have the potential to save someone\u2019s life, total stranger,\u201d he said. \u201cI know I wasn\u2019t a match for Eddie, so I made this person my Eddie that I can help.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people realized how easy it was to donate stem cells, more would do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen hopefully one day more and more matches can happen,\u201d he said. \u201cMore and more Eddies will be saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Petcavage boarded a plane back to Northeast Pennsylvania and begin his Christmas celebration, feeling good and believing that Eddie was smiling down on him.<\/p>\n

Brian Kaufman said his family is still struggling with the pain of losing Eddie, but Petcavage\u2019s generosity brought them some light.<\/p>\n

\u201cEddie asked all of us to live for him,\u201d Kaufman said. \u201cCody is certainly doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mid Valley High School graduate Eddie Kaufman died of cancer in October, he left behind a legacy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-68898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-scranton","13":"tag-scranton-headlines","14":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}