I like to think I’m not a selfish person. I have forthright opinions. I’m pretty black and white and I don’t suffer fools either but when I see somebody that needs my help, I’ll step up if I can. Thats how I was brought up. Thats why I’ve given blood, I’m a registered organ donor and now a trained Mental Health First Aider at work. I’ve helped raise £000’s for charities through cycling events and I’ll happily sponsor friends and colleagues that take on tough challenges. The latest addition to my ‘help others’ CV is DKMS, here’s why.
A very young lad needs help. His name is Finlay aka “Finn the Fabulous” and earlier this year he was diagnosed with a rare condition called HLH (Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis ) which is also affecting his brain. His parents were told he urgently needs a stem cell donation.
As any parents would, they’ve done what they can to help him. They’ve undertaken a massive social media campaign to raise awareness of his condition and asked everyone, just normal people, to register with DKMS to see if they can find him that stem cell match he needs. I saw this and I decided I wanted to help. Partly because I’m a dad, Finn deserves every chance possible at his age and he’s quite local too.
They’ve held special events ( and continue to do so..) where members of the public can turn up to be swabbed and registered, they’ve raised money (Sally baked a cake for one of their events) but you can also register for a home swab kit via the DKMS website, which is what Sally and I did.
I’m a bit late to the party but my kit came on Friday and I’ve now done it and its ready to be posted back to DKMS on Monday.
Using the kit is simple and will only take 10 mins of your life to potentially save a life.
The return on your investment could be MASSIVE
You open the swabs, rub each for a minute inside your cheeks, let them dry for 5 minutes, pop them in the return wallet, affix your bar code off the letter and return them in the pre-paid envelope. Done.
All I have to do now is wait to see if I’m a match for Finlay. Fingers crossed. But if I’m not a match though I just might be able to help someone else.
Now finally, this is important. If you want to register, you MUST read the FAQs on the DKMS website to understand the implications of what you are doing and if you are a match, what happens. I’m not trying to emotionally black mail people to do this, I’m just telling people I have and why.
Get well soon Finn x