Alright lads and ladies!
Tomorrow i am heading down to London to donate my blood stem cells to someone who is suffering from a blood cancer such as leukemia or lymphoma.
I thought i would take this opportunity to spread the word about the fantastic charity and the work they do!
Millions of blood cancer patients worldwide require a bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant in order to overcome their illness. What Anthony Nolan do is match people from their register with the people requiring a transplant. To be on the register you need to go to their website and sign up - that is what i did about 4 years ago...
Once i filled in my details they sent me out a 'spit kit'. All i had to do was spit in a tube, put it in their prepaid envelope and post it back to them! They could then determine my blood tissue type from my saliva sample...
About 2 years later they contacted me to notify me that i had quite a common tissue type and that i stood more chance of being a match for a patient and requested i send them some blood samples for further analysis. They sent me a blood sample kit, i got some samples taken by the doctor and these were then posted away...
Roughly 2 months ago they contacted me to tell me they have a patient who potentially needed my blood stem cells. I had to send another load of samples away and they then confirmed i was a match and asked if i would make the donation. I agreed...
2 weeks ago i travelled down to London from my home in Scotland and had a medical examination - they took a load more blood samples (23 i think) plus gave me a chest xray and an ECG. A week later they confirmed that everything was A-Okay and that i was fit to donate...
Over the last 3 days a nurse has come to my house and injected me with a steroid that makes my bonemarrow produce more stem cells. Tomorrow i go to a hospital in London for my 4th course of injections. The following day, Tuesday, is my donation day. I will arrive at the hospital at 8.30am and they will hook me up to a strm cell seperating machine and the donation process will begin. Once they have collected the stem cells they have 72 hours to transport them to wherever in the world the patient is and plant them into them!
The charity cover all your expenses - transport, hotel, food, loss of earnings etc.
It is important that they keep adding new doners to their forever growing register so if you have ever considered joining or want to learn more about it then please go to Anthony Nolan | Saving the lives of people with blood cancer.
I am also running a 10k in Glasgow in October to raise awareness of it all. If you have a spare quid or two then feel free to add it to my pot at http://www.justgiving.com/peterhardytryingtorun
If anyone wants to ask any questions about any of it then fire away
Cheers folks!