A family from Newport in South Wales have made a desperate plea urging people to become bone marrow donors after their six-year-old boy was diagnosed with a rare blood disease.
Marley Nicholls was diagnosed aplastic anaemia after weeks of tests due to feeling unwell and having a high temperature.
Aplastic anaemia stops the body from producing enough blood cells and doctors fear that without a bone marrow transplant the disease will prove fatal for Marley, reports the South Wales Argus.
The St Julian’s Primary School student spent two weeks having his blood taken while doctors struggled to find a cause.
The Royal Gwent Hospital initially thought that Marley had leukaemia.
But on July 23, 2018, he was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia following bone marrow analysis.
Read More: Family's search for bone marrow donor for little Marley
Shaney and Joe were shattered further when Marley's four-year-old brother and best chance of donor, George, was not a match.
In a Facebook post on the group Marrow for Marley, which was set up to raise awareness and encourage people to become bone marrow donors, mum Shaney pleaded the public: “We are just an everyday family who really needs some help.
“We need as many people as we possibly can to sign up to the Bone Marrow Register so if you are between 17 and 31 I am begging you.
“PLEASE help us and PLEASE go and sign up.
"We never in a million years thought this would happen to us but it has and I'm just a mum trying to do my absolute best for my little boy. Please, please help us.”
The family are hoping if enough people from anywhere in the UK sign up to be donors then a match will be found for Marley.
A campaign #MarrowforMarley was backed by our sister paper the South Wales Argus and lead to 3,000 people signing up to become donors with Anthony Nolan, a charity which matches people willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people who need lifesaving transplants, and has also led to a huge increase in blood donations.
Even if the people tested are not a bone marrow match for Marley they will be put on a national register and could be a match for someone else.
More than 100,000 people worldwide are in need of a transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
Tragically, there is an equally large number for those who die while waiting for a transplant.
To sign up and become a donor visit: www.anthonynolan.org
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