One year after her death, brave Emily is still helping others live
Inspirational teenage cancer campaigner Emily Clark is helping patients almost 12 months after her death. Abbie Wightwick reports...
ON the first anniversary of Emily Clark’s death, her mother has revealed how five bone marrow transplants have taken place and at least 12 bone marrow matches have been found as a result of her daughter’s determination to sign more people up to the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register.
More than 4,500 people signed up to the register after 18-year-old death, Emily, from Llantarnam, Cwmbran, campaigned through her website and blog which was read around the world.
Emily, who was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin (Burkitts) Lymphoma in 2013 when she was 16, had dreamed of a career in medicine and had been doing extra tuition at London’s renowned Imperial College when she fell ill in her first term of sixth form. Emily, a science student at the University of South Wales, had campaigned for donors from her hospital bed a year before she was told she would need one herself. T h e donation was carried out but Emily died on March 12 last year. Before her death, Emily had also raised funds to buy young cancer patients gifts for their arrival in hospital and set up the Remission Possible website, which she established to help other young people fighting cancer. Her mother, Donna Dunn, said many more people who signed the bone marrow register because of Emily’s campaign may be matches or have become donors, but that the system is anonymous unless people involved want to get in touch. So far 12 donors, who signed up thanks to Emily, have contacted Donna saying they have been identified as potential matches for cancer patients. Of those 12, five have donated bone marrow to cancer patients and one recipient is known to be a young boy.
Donna said it was a comfort to know Emily’s efforts were still helping others.
She said: “I was very aware this week would be hard so when I had a text to say someone has donated and we know we have at least 12 matches it was amazing.
“Emily wanted people to find a match. This is her legacy. This week is hard, but I am so proud of what she achieved. It’s only when people want to come to tell us that we know about it. There may be more.
“A boy two years below Emily at Croesyceiliog School wrote to me to say he is match. He is 18. He hasn’t donated yet but has been identified as a match for someone. He said he would never have joined the register until he found out about it through Emily. You can’t sign up until you are 17 and we have had someone say the first thing they’re doing when they are 17 is signing up.”
A fundraising campaign in Emily’s memory has raised more than £52,000 to rebuild the bone marrow transplant unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff where she was treated. Donna is now going into schools to talk to pupils about cancer and raise awareness of being a bone marrow donor.
“We hear a lot about organ donation and that is great but we also need to talk more about bone marrow donation which also saves lives,” she said.
For more information, see www. anthonynolan.org and Emily’s website www.remissionpossible. org.uk