"It's amazing that something that easy could save my son's life"
Local mum-of-two Ashley Cowperthwaite, a hairdresser and student at Hugh Baird College, is appealing to members of the community to attend a recruitment drive against blood cancer.
Ashley’s nine-year-old son Kieron Fairclough has a rare and serious condition called Diamond Blackfan Anaemia, which means his bone marrow can’t produce enough blood cells. He relies heavily on blood transfusions and medicines to keep him stable. His only hope of a long-term cure is a stem cell transplant to replace his damaged bone marrow with new, healthy cells donated by a stranger, as his sister Kloe isn’t a match. Kieron will now rely on blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan to search its register for a donor whose tissue type matches his own.
In order to raise awareness of the Anthony Nolan stem cell register, Bootle resident Ashley is encouraging people from her local community to drop in to a donor recruitment event at Hugh Baird College, from 11am -3pm on 4th February, the same day as World Cancer Day. Joining the register is a simple process that involves completing a medical questionnaire and providing a saliva sample. If a donor is matched to a patient needing a transplant, stem cells are usually donated in a straightforward procedure similar to giving blood.
The family wants to encourage as many people aged 16–30 to sign up and give people like Kieron a second chance of life. Young men and people from BAME backgrounds are particularly encouraged to attend, as they are currently underrepresented on the register.
Kieron and Ashley (Credit: Liverpool Echo)
Ashley said: “Before all this happened I’d never even thought about stem cell donation, but now I realise how many myths there are. People think it’s really painful but it’s not at all; it’s actually more like giving blood, and all you have to do to sign up is spit into a tube. It’s amazing that something that easy could save my son’s life and I am really grateful to my college for inviting the Anthony Nolan team in to recruit more donors. I hope lots of people take a few minutes out of their day to come and find out what it’s all about and how they could save a life.”
Anthony Nolan is also appealing to the gaming community to rally round Kieron, as part of its ‘Lifesaver Mode’ campaign. The charity has collaborated with social gaming platform Twitch to raise awareness of how easy it is to donate stem cells and encourage people to register as potential donors.
Ashley added, “Kieron’s a proper little gamer and he loves being able to save the world playing his favourite X-Box games, Marvel Superheroes and Superman. It’s strange to think there could be another gamer out there who could be Kieron’s own superhero. It could even be a teenager, as you can join the Anthony Nolan register from the age of sixteen. You’ll never know if it’s you, unless you sign up.”
Ann O’Leary, head of register development at Anthony Nolan, said: “Every person that joins our register has the potential to save the life of someone like Kieron. Recruitment events like this are really important to helping us meet our goal of finding a match for everyone that needs a transplant.”
