Mother urges people to join stem cell register

A mother-of-three who was diagnosed with a rare cancer 28 years to the day she found out her son had leukaemia has urged people to join the stem cell donor register.

Nikola Dolphin-Rowland, from Leicestershire, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia - a rare type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow - on 18 May.

The 51-year-old - who has undergone three rounds of chemotherapy - is due to have a stem cell transplant in the "coming weeks" having found a match.

She said the treatment will give her the chance to hug her first grandchild and get back to her local parkrun.

Dolphin-Rowland, from Melton Mowbray, said she recognised the symptoms of her cancer as her eldest child, Joe Carnell, had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia - a similar kind of the disease - as a two-year-old.

She was a fit and healthy woman before her diagnosis and ran a half marathon two weeks before discovering she was unwell.

Since then she has gone through chemotherapy and has found out she needs a stem cell transplant.

"I'm in a really good position at the moment," she said. "It's been tough, really tough.

"You have good days, you have bad days, but on the whole, I'm a very, very positive person and I know I'm going to get through this."

Having found out she needed the transplant, the 51-year-old registered her whole family for stem cell donation, but was told she needed an unrelated donor.

Fortunately, a perfect match was found "within a few weeks".

"At the start of my treatment, I didn't know what to expect, but when I was told I had to have a stem cell transplant, I worried.

"Luckily, I've been matched with a 10 out of 10 donor for my stem cell transplant, but not everybody is as lucky as I am.

"Getting a transplant gives me a second chance at life. It gives me the chance to meet my first grandbaby that's due in November. It will just mean I can get my life back.

"I can plan for the future now, the first thing I will do is a parkrun and have so much family time. I'm going to hug my granddaughter and never let her go, I can't wait to be Nana Nik."

Dolphin-Rowland is now appealing for more people to join the stem cell register.

"I was so happy when I found out about my donor.

"I can't thank people enough for registering, it is such a selfless act. Donors are amazing.

"But, we need more people," she said.

"It's a really easy process - you go and have a blood test and you get put on the register.

"You might never get called up, but you could save somebody's life and give them a future."

The NHS Blood Team said registering as a potential stem cell donor was easy and "in many cases, a stem cell transplant is a patient's only chance of a cure".

Donation is usually done via the blood – a special donation where stem cells are filtered out of your blood and the rest of the blood returned to your body.

In one in ten donations, it can be best to have a procedure to take them from the bone marrow.

"Stem cell donors are giving someone a chance at life, someone is giving me my life back and the chance to be a nana," she said.

Guy Parkes, head of stem cell donation and transplantation, said they were seeing the highest number of people joining the registry since the mid-1990s.

"It is fantastic to see the continued growth of the NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry, helping give more patients the chance of a life-saving stem cell transplant," he said.

"There is more to do, particularly to increase the diversity of the registry.

"We want every patient who needs a stem cell transplant to have the best possible chance of finding a match."

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