‘Thanks to bone marrow donor I will see my little girl grow up’
AGED just 25, Kelly Coombes was told the devastating news she had cancer.
The young mum from Penpedairheol, Caerphilly, faced not being able to marry her long-term partner or see her two-year-old daughter, Ruby, grow up.
Her nightmare story started when she started feeling unwell and noticed lumps on her body.
“For a couple of weeks I started generally not feeling very well,” she said. “I noticed little lumps had appeared on my stomach and on my spine.
“I was really concerned so I went to the GP on a Monday and they said it was my glands as I had flu-like symptoms, and to rest up.
“That night I had really bad haemorrhoids and it was really painful.
“I went back to the GP on the Wednesday and they said it was flulike symptoms again. Then all my gums started to swell and I had severe dizziness. I would get out of bed and couldn’t walk. The pain had got so intense I called the out-of-hours service on Friday night. They told me to go to Ystrad Mynach Hospital on Saturday morning.
“I went and the doctor knew straightaway it was very serious. They arranged for me to go to Prince Charles Hospital. They did all the blood tests and at first thought it was a serious infection, but said they would send my results to the Heath to double-check.
“Ten to 15 minutes later they believed it was leukaemia. It was so aggressive I needed to go to the hospital that night and start chemotherapy.”
On February 27, 2016, Kelly’s life changed forever.
Kelly was told she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells.
“You never think it’s going to happen to you,” Kelly said. “I’ve always said I used to get so annoyed when I used to watch soaps and they found out they had cancer and it would go silent. But that’s what happened.
“They said I had cancer and I just burst out crying. Within a second your whole life just completely changes.”
After two rounds of chemotherapy, Kelly was told her best chance of survival was finding a suitable bone marrow donor for a life-changing stemcell transplant.
But with more than 20,000 people hoping to find a match, Kelly feared the worst.
“It was the numbers that scared me,” she said. “I was told that without a transplant I only had a 15% chance of survival. With one, I had an 80-85% chance of survival.
“I had a two-year-old daughter and I kept thinking, ‘I’m not going to see her grow up.’
“I wasn’t able to see my daughter either as the ward was one that had no children and I was so ill so couldn’t go to the family room.
“She needed her mum. That was the worst thing. She was so young.”
Luckily, after months of treatment, Kelly received the news that a bone marrow match had been found.
“I knew that there was someone out there who wanted to help me. Even if my body rejected it, everything felt worth it again. You just feel elated.”
The bone marrow transplant saved her life.
Since receiving the donation, Kelly has been able to marry her long-term partner and was present to take her young daughter to her first day of school – life events she feared she would miss.
After years of trying to find the right words to thank her donor, Kelly wrote a heartfelt poem to express her gratitude for the life-saving donation on Bone Marrow Donor Day.
Kelly said: “I will get to see her grow up.
“It means absolutely everything. One day I hope he realises he has saved a whole family.”
There are currently more than 20,000 people hoping to find a suitable bone marrow match.
Emma Cook, head of the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry, is calling for more people to sign up. “Any 17- 30-year-old in Wales that wants to become a lifesaver can attend a Welsh Blood Service donation session and ask about joining the bone marrow register.”
To join the bone marrow register, simply book an appointment to give blood by visiting welshblood.org.uk or calling the Welsh Blood Service on 0800 252 266.