Stem-cell donor is guest of honour at wedding

A WOMAN who battled cancer for four years was delighted to celebrate her wedding with a special guest – her stem-cell donor.

Helen Eragona, 33, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2010 and spent years undergoing gruelling chemotherapy.

But Ms Eragona, from Edinburgh, was finally able to beat the cancer with the help of cells donated by Ben Potts.

Ms Eragona was delighted when Mr Potts, 27, travelled from his home in Maidstone, Kent, to watch her be married to long-time partner Raff.

She said: “When you have your stem-cell transplant you can send your donor an anonymous thank you card. I did not expect anything back but I got a card back to say, ‘I’m glad it went well’.

“It was quite overwhelming when I met him for the first time.

“It seemed completely fitting he would be at the wedding because had it not been for him, we wouldn’t have been there at all.”

Ms Eragona first found a lump under her arm in 2010 after she had been feeling tired while working at the Edinburgh Festival. She was diagnosed with cancer after tests found the disease in her white blood cells.

Ms Eragona and Raff, her partner for 13 years, turned to cancer charity Maggie’s Centres for support. The charity helped the couple after Ms Eragona had her first stemcell transplant in 2011 and were by her side when the cancer returned 18 months later. She was told she would require a stem-cell donor for another transplant, as the previous treatment had used her own cells.

Thanks to Mr Potts’s donation, Ms Eragona had the transplant in 2014 and finally begin to rebuild her life.