This Christmas, Ben and Elizna Vrey, and their children, Eliana (7), Bea (5) and Ezra (3) are looking forward to spending precious family time together, with a sense of joy and deep gratitude.
And it’s all thanks to people like you who care enough to help.
We’d like to take you back two years ago, when things were very, very different.
Baby Ezra had just been born, when Elizna started to see a change in Bea. From a cheerful little three-year-old who was always smiling, she seemed to be scared of everything and became very clingy.
Bea started complaining about pain in her knees. And it started to be difficult to get her to sleep in her own bed.
Then, when the whole family went down with flu, Bea didn’t get better, and still had a temperature.
Being so lethargic and pale, their GP was worried that Bea might be anaemic. And that night she was admitted into an ICU ward in their small local hospital for a blood transfusion and investigation.
That was a Friday. Saturday brought the shocking news
that Bea had blood cancer (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia).
On Sunday, with her health rapidly worsening,
Bea was sent to the Red Cross Children’s
Hospital in Cape Town for chemotherapy.
Bea needed a bone marrow transplant. Nobody in the family was a match. And the friends who had tested weren’t matches either.
That’s when Bea was referred to us , the South African Bone Marrow Registry! We’re sure you’ll be glad to know that Bea was one of the lucky patients who didn’t have to wait too long for a donor.
We found a young woman in
Germany who was a match!
After her chemotherapy, Bea had to wait two months before the stem cell transplant. And the treatment plan was that she would have to be in isolation for another two months. The final complication was that she had graft-versus-host disease which extended her recovery by two more months.
We’re so happy to tell you that Bea’s now a healthy, smiling and busy five-year-old.
Whilst stem cell donors locally and globally are the obvious heroes in stem cell transplants, there are also unseen heroes in these life-saving miracles.
These unseen heroes are our
funders – our financial donors –
who keep the testing, registrations
and searches happening.
Because every step of the way costs money.
Our team and I couldn’t do what we do
without their behind-the-scenes partnership.
Will you be one of our unseen heroes
by making your secure online donation?
Thanks to the support of people just like you, the Vrey family is looking forward to this Christmas with joy and gratitude. Yet more patients are
waiting . . . and hoping . . . and others will join the waiting list.
And it’s for them that we’re asking you to please
click here right now to make your online donation, to send your gift of hope in the spirit of Christmas.
Your donation will be a gift towards saving a life. And our hope is that your caring will also enrich your own Christmas this year.