When Michele Gordon was organizing a blood and bone marrow drive, the Pelham woman couldn’t have known that the event might help a member of her own family.

Less than three weeks ago, Michele’s husband, Dean, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Now, the drive – which was being planned before he got sick – might possibly help him.

“We’re hoping for a big turnout,” said Michele, who wants to enter as many names as possible into a registry of bone marrow donors. “It’s so easy to save a life if you’re a match for somebody.”

The drive will be held Friday, Feb. 20, from 1 to 7 p.m., at Crossroads Baptist Church. The church is located at 43 Atwood Road in Pelham.

AML is a cancer that begins inside bone marrow, the soft tissue that helps form blood cells. The cancer grows quickly from cells that normally turn into white blood cells.

Dean, 48, was diagnosed on Feb. 1, and is a patient at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He receives blood transfusions almost daily. He recently underwent seven days of chemotherapy, and blood marrow biopsies will determine if the treatment was successful.

He and Michele, a critical care nurse at Lowell General Hospital, have three daughters: college student Krista, 22, Janelle, 16, and Kaleigh, 10. This is the third blood drive to be held at the church, which the Gordons attend, and the first one to include a bone marrow drive.

The bone marrow search has been promoted by Save Giovanni, an organization named after a Belmont baby in need of a bone marrow transplant. His father, Michael Guglielmo, plans to be at the event.

“He has this mission in life to get as many (people) into the registry as possible,” said Michele.

Bone marrow donors should be 18 to 55 years of age and in good health, according to the organization’s Web site. Donations will be accepted to support the cause and reduce testing costs.

“It’s not painful,” said Stacy Osborne, a friend of the Gordons who is helping organize the drive. “It’s a cheek swab.”

Michele, too, wants people to know that being a bone marrow donor is not a painful process. About 80 percent of the time, she said, doctors can get all the stem cells they need through blood. If marrow needs to be extracted, the donor is sedated.

Last fall, Dean was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. The fatigue and nauseousness he experienced in December was thought to be a side effect of medicine he was taking. In mid-January, he complained of rib pain. On Jan. 30, he told Michele he was having trouble breathing.

Eventually he saw his primary care physician who ordered blood work, tests that revealed low blood platelet counts. He was admitted to the hospital. Dr. Robert Soiffer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who happened to be at the hospital that day, put the pieces together and diagnosed Dean as suffering from AML.

Dean, an otherwise healthy and athletic man who likes to play tennis and hockey and enjoys hiking, had donated blood and helped out at past blood drives.

Now, church members are serving as a “huge support” to her family, said Michele. They’ve provided meals, cleaned their home, and have provided emotional support.

“This hits home for us,” said Osborne. “Dean is a big part of our church.”