Saving the Lives of People with Blood Cancer
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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Claire Mason is a senior physiotherapist at Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, working in haematology with a range of patients, including those who have received a stem cell transplant. Claire shares with us some specialist advice about managing physical health before and after transplant, as well as side effects such as fatigue, and how to take…
