The niece of footballer Gary Ablett has donated her bone marrow to help cure a blood cancer patient, just months after her uncle died of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Toni Moore is now helping Anthony Nolan to raise awareness of our bone marrow register, which we use to match potential donors with blood cancer patients in desperate need of a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
Toni, 23, joined the Anthony Nolan register in 2011, following the news of her uncle’s diagnosis. “When Gary was told that he needed a bone marrow transplant to save his life, we all decided to sign up to the register. We knew that we wouldn’t be a match for him, but we could be a match for someone else in his position – it was such an important thing to do.”
Although Anthony Nolan found a donor for Gary, he sadly passed away on 2 January 2012. Just months later, Anthony Nolan contacted Toni to tell her that she was a potential match for a patient. “I just couldn’t believe it,” she says. “There are so many people in the world that I never thought it would be me who came up as a match.”
Toni donated in November 2012, and remembers being a bit anxious about the procedure before the donation. “I read all the information that Anthony Nolan provided, and talked it through with my family. But when it came down to it, there was nothing to be scared about – it’s just like giving blood. The worst thing is how bored you are sitting down for four hours while they collect your bone marrow!”
“It really wasn’t a big deal,” she adds, “until I was told that my recipient was a woman. It suddenly hit me that I’d just given someone’s mum, sister or wife another chance this Christmas. Nothing can be more important than that.”
There are currently over 460,000 people on the Anthony Nolan register, but we can only find a match for around half the people who come to us in need of a lifesaving transplant. For more information or to sign up online, please visit www.anthonynolan.org/register.
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