By John Fuller, Cricket Yorkshire.
Haris Hussain is in the fight of his life.
Back in March, the 18 year-old from Sheffield found his world flipped upside down. One minute, he was to set to go on pre-season tour with ProCoach to Spain and the next, diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia with dysplastic changes.
According to the international not-for-profit DKMS, blood cancer is the fifth most common type of cancer in the UK, with someone being diagnosed every 20 minutes.
The bad news is that only 30% of the blood cancer patients in need of blood stem cell donation find a donor within their family. The rest rely on the odds of finding a match on the UK stem cell registry (with around 2,000 people still waiting).
Despite a global search to track down a matching donor for Haris, one has not yet been found; this is where you may be able to help.
If you are aged between 17-55 and in general good health, you can register yourself as a potential blood stem cell donor. Here’s the process explained from registration to potential donation.
It is quick and easy to do the preliminary cheek swab at home then post back to DKMS. Whatever your circumstances in life, it is a rare thing indeed to have the capability to save someone else’s life.
