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Could You help Father of 2 Graham
?
 A
father-of-two who has already beaten cancer once is
searching the globe for a bone marrow donor to help
treat his rare form of leukaemia.
Graham Barnell, 42, now lives in Melbourne,
Australia, but is looking to Bedfordshire, and his
home town of Kempston where his adoptive parents
still live, to help fight his cancer.
Graham was first diagnosed with acute myeloid
leukaemia in April and had two cycles of
chemotherapy to fight the disease into remission.
Unfortunately he has an extremely unusual type of
the disease that puts him into the adverse prognosis
group. These patients run a very high risk of
relapse, but the family are feeling lucky as Graham
was diagnosed very early on and is a good candidate
for a bone marrow transplant.
His family have found out that his tissue type
contains genes that are common in South American
populations so they are appealing in particular to
groups of people who may have mixed European/south
American heritage.
His wife Samantha, 37, said: "He has recovered well
from the two courses of chemotherapy and our spirits
are quite high at the moment, but it is worrying to
know that the disease could relapse at any time.
"The results of a transplant are much better if it
is given in the first remission and we just don't
know how long that window will be available to us."
Graham grew up in Kempston, went to Hastingsbury
Upper School, and worked at WH Allen engineering
works in Queens Park.
He moved to Australia with Samantha in 2003 to be
closer to her family, and they have two children,
Jack, aged six, and Poppy, two. Graham was first
diagnosed with leukaemia after he started having
heart palpitations while on holiday in Victoria,
Australia. His doctor took a blood test and referred
him to a cardiologist.
 Samantha
added: "If Graham hadn't been diagnosed when he was,
he would have had only four-to six weeks to live.
His GP rang me at work to say that he had leukaemia
and I had to go and get him from work and take him
straight to the hospital where a bed was ready for
him to start chemotherapy.
"It was a shock to say the least. When I got to his
work he was waiting outside, he got into the car and
we both burst into tears."
Patients with an adverse form leukaemia have a 78
per cent chance of relapse, and only 15 per cent
survive for more than five years. Graham has no full
siblings so the family are looking to the worldwide
bone marrow register to find a donor.
The family are now urging people to sign up to the
donor register and give blood to help people in
similar situations.
G
Some of the above information is taken from the website of
Bedford today on 20 July 2007.
click here to return to home page
click here to find out more
about how you
can register
click here to go to
Graham's website |
