At Anthony Nolan, we save the lives of people with blood cancer – and we’ve got some incredible stories to tell.
If you’ve got a transplant experience or stem cell donation story to share, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today.
BLOGS
‘My dad was my donor, and it was nerve-wracking as the success rate was significantly lower.’ – Anie’s story
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When 25-year-old Anie was told she’d need a stem cell transplant to treat her aplastic anaemia aged 17, she thought finding a matching donor would be easy. But her Asian ethnicity made it much harder to find a match. Anie spoke to Clare from our Patient Services team about her experience of having a haploidentical…
Can certain donor genes protect AML patients from infections after a stem cell transplant?
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Anthony Nolan is proud to facilitate three stem cell transplants a day. Though they give patients a vital second chance of life, they can also lead to severe post-transplant complications including relapse, graft vs host disease (GvHD) and infections. But what if we could identify specific genes in the donor which help reduce the risk…
‘In my darkest hour my consultant gave me the incredible, life-changing news that they had found a perfectly matched stem-cell donor.’ – Nick’s story
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My Anthony Nolan Story began almost 20 years ago with a routine health check-up at work, which revealed macrocytosis (enlarged red blood cells). Investigations followed, and tears of relief that I did not have HIV quickly turned to tears of fear when I was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome. I had never heard of MDS, but…
‘It is a good feeling though to know you have helped in a small way’ – Hayley’s story
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Hayley Leonard is Lead Nurse at Anthony Nolan. She has held many jobs during her medical career, including working as a transplant nurse. But her latest role as a volunteer courier gave her an insight into what it takes to get stem cells to a patient, ready for their transplant to go ahead. Normally, a…
‘How can I cope with self-isolation for a prolonged period?’ – Jayne gives her best tips for coronavirus isolation
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This week, the UK Government announced new measures to encourage self-isolation in order to contain the spread of coronavirus. But what are the best ways to manage during isolation? To find out, we asked someone who knows – a stem cell recipient called Jayne, who gained ample experience of isolation following her transplant. So Jayne,…
What’s it like having Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP) for GvHD?
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Sam was only three years old when he started to experience fatigue and bruising and was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia. He was treated with immunosuppressants, but 17 years later he was also diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and was told he’d need a stem cell transplant. After his transplant, Sam has experienced graft versus host…
