FC211.11 Video

Our lovely Graham was diagnosed in April 2007 with a deadly type of leukaemia that affects less than 6 adults a year in Australia and his only chance of survival was a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, as Graham is adopted, he doesn't have an HLA-identical sibling to act as a donor for him. So the Red Cross here in Australia searched the Bone Marrow Registries worldwide for 9 months to find a match. Graham has a rare tissue type and a match was not found. Thanks to generous donations of over $400,000, Graham was able to travel from his home in Melbourne, Australia to Seattle in the USA for a revolutionary, life-saving stem cell treatment in April 2008. On Wed 6th August, he was the 8th person in the world to receive a Stem Cell Transplant using stem cells grown in the lab from an umbilical cord. The treatment was a complete success and he is now leukaemia free.