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 | | Wednesday, 27 February, 2002, 13:58 GMT Family 'ecstatic' over donor  Catherine will soon go into hospital for the transplant A bone-marrow donor from America has come forward to help save the life of a five-year-old British girl. "Catherine", from Lutterworth in Leicestershire, has been waiting for more than a year for a transplant operation. Her mother, who prefers to remain anonymous, said: "We are absolutely ecstatic about the donor coming forward, but also a little bit apprehensive as well. "We are asking for everyone to pray for us as there is still so much ahead of us." Worldwide search Catherine, who has Fanconi anaemia, a rare genetic disorder, will go into hospital in Birmingham at the end of the week to have tests and prepare her for the transplant. The American donor has not been identified because of confidentiality agreements, but is understood to be a man who was located in a worldwide donor search. His bone marrow will be flown over to the UK from the United States when the transplant is ready to go ahead. The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust, which helps find donors for transplants like this one, arranged two special donor-awareness meetings in Leicestershire last November to find a match. No suitable donor was located even though more than 400 people attended one of the sessions.
"We were beginning to worry that we wouldn't find a match for Catherine, " Barbara Elsey, a trust spokeswoman, said. The little girl will undergo extensive radiation therapy to kill the cancer cells in her bone marrow. The healthy marrow from the donor will then be transplanted into her body. The trust guidelines say that anyone who wants to donate bone marrow must be between 18 and 40 years old, in good health and willing to give a blood sample at a clinic. 'Often tearful' Participants are placed on a register, and are asked to donate if a match is found, but are given the option to withdraw at any stage. The trust has 316,000 bone marrow donors registered in the UK, with five million people on registers worldwide. In early 2001, Catherine's mother discovered the little girl was tired at school and often tearful. "I also noticed that she was covered with bruises, and when we brushed her teeth, her gums were bleeding," her mother said. "At first I thought it was leukaemia," her mother said. If the transplant is successful, Catherine will be able to live a fairly normal life. | |   See also: Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top England stories now:  Links to more England stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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