Brave Fife youngster Ava Stark is to make contact with her life-saving bone marrow donor for the first time as she celebrates her two year transplant anniversary.
The five-year-old’s family have penned a heartfelt letter to the anonymous person who registered with the charity Anthony Nolan following a worldwide appeal for help.
Ava, from Lochgelly, was diagnosed with inherited bone marrow failure in April 2016 prompting the search for a matching donor as she relied on blood and platelet transfusions to stay alive.
Her story touched the hearts of the nation with more than 80,000 people registering to help.
Following a series of heartbreaks, a match was eventually found and she underwent the transplant on November 25 that year.
Now that two years have passed, the family have been allowed to write an anonymous letter to the mysterious donor to thank them for helping save Ava’s life.
Mum Marie said the letter was now ready to be delivered.
“None of us expected to get to the two year mark when we were waiting for a donor, so it’s just crazy and unbelievable now that it has happened,” she said.
“You cannot put into words, as I have realised because I have changed the letter six times in the last week, how grateful we are to this donor.
“I sat up to 4am on Monday working on it. You think of stuff to say after you’ve written it, so you change it and then it doesn’t make sense so you have to start again.
“They’ve saved Ava’s life. Thank you is just not enough for what they did.”
She added: “The letter can’t contain any details about who Ava is. The hospital and Anthony Nolan read it to check before it’s passed on to the donor.
“But the donor will only get the letter if they’ve ticked the box saying they would like contact from the person who received their donation. We really hope they have.
“Ava doesn’t quite understand it — she thinks she’s getting a new friend who is going to come to her parties so hopefully one day in the future, that might happen.”
Anyone who is relatively healthy and aged 16-55 can sign up to the bone marrow donor register.
For more information, visit: www.anthonynolan.org or www.dkms.org.uk/en.
Amy Bartlett, regional register development manager for the Anthony Nolan charity, said: “We are happy that Ava is doing well and we continue to wish her the very best.
“Her story inspired thousands of people not only in the UK, but around the world, to join the Anthony Nolan stem cell register, giving hope to many other people affected by blood cancer.
- For more on this story see Monday’s Courier, also available as a digital edition.
