Wisdom tooth removal leads to shocking leukemia diagnosis in college athlete

Kendall Schara expected a routine dental fix. Instead, the 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Green Bay volleyball player, a Crown Point, Indiana, native, wound up facing acute myeloid leukemia, a diagnosis that upended her life between her junior and senior seasons.

Wisdom tooth removal is one of the most common oral surgeries, performed to take out the third molars at the back corners of the mouth. Those teeth often emerge in the late teens or early twenties, which is why the procedure is familiar to so many college-aged patients. Schara’s case shows how routine care can become the first step toward detecting something far more serious, especially when symptoms or blood work raise questions that do not fit a simple dental problem.

Green Bay athletics said on April 28, 2025, that Schara would be in the hospital for at least five weeks for treatment. Acute myeloid leukemia is a fast-moving cancer of the blood and bone marrow, and in young adults its warning signs can be easy to miss at first, blending in with exhaustion, training demands, or everyday stress. That is what makes Schara’s diagnosis especially jarring for a college athlete in the middle of her playing career.

Back home in Crown Point, the reaction was immediate. By May 8, 2025, local coverage said the community was rallying around Schara, with support and fundraisers building around the former Crown Point Volleyball player as she fought cancer. Green Bay head coach Abbey Sutherland praised Schara’s influence on the program, saying, “Kendall has made a huge impact on Green Bay Volleyball and our surrounding community,” and describing the respect she had earned from teammates and staff.

The response did not stop at words. Later coverage said the team renamed a volleyball tournament in Schara’s honor and welcomed her back to campus, turning a medical crisis into a broader show of loyalty from both Green Bay and her hometown. But her story should not be mistaken for screening advice: a single case does not mean a wisdom tooth extraction is a leukemia test. It does underline a harder lesson, that persistent fatigue, unexplained bruising, frequent infections, or other lingering changes in a young adult deserve attention, even when the original appointment is something as ordinary as oral surgery.