A WEYMOUTH mum is starting the next stage of her battle to beat leukaemia – as she renews her plea for more stem cell donors to come forward.

May Brown, 23, from Weymouth, was diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia in June last year.

The former Weymouth College student managed to beat it and get into remission but desperately needs to find a blood stem cell transplant donor.

May, who is originally from Nigeria and is married to former British soldier Mike, got the ‘devastating’ news that her cancer had relapsed earlier this month and spent the last week in the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in isolation while doctors run tests.

It was hoped that she would be able to go onto some experimental drugs that she could have taken at home, but she got the news across the weekend that she will need to go for more cycles of chemotherapy.

Each of the four cycles will require her to be in hospital in isolation for around six weeks while she recovers – unfortunately those aged under 16 are too much of an infection risk to visit.

This means May’s two-year-old daughter Selina-May will only be able to see her mum for a weekend between each cycle – if May’s immune system is deemed strong enough.

But May is remaining positive.

She said: “It’s very hard. But if it take six months to get my health back so I can be here for many years to come, it’s worth it. It’s hard.”

Hopefully the treatment will put May into remission again and then she will be ready for a stem cell donor transplant.

But she is yet to find a match, with a national shortage of black donors.

May said: “It would be nice to have a donor waiting. So when I am in remission, then I can have the transplant

– that would be amazing.

“I keep on praying

and hoping for the best.”

She is urging people not to be scared by the donor process, she said: “They take the stem cells from the blood – like a blood donation. There’s no long-term health risk. They don’t have to be scared.”

To become a donor visit dkms.org.uk or anthonynolan.org

SO HOW EASY IS IT?

HAVING met May and her wonderful family, I couldn’t not become a stem cell donor.

But I didn’t know what to expect - what exactly happens?

I needn’t have worried, Anthony Nolan say that 90 percent of donations are done through peripheral blood stem cell collection – it’s similar to giving blood. The blood is taken out of one arm and the stem cells are filtered out and then the blood is put back into the other arm.

The charity said the other option (which is only around 10 percent of donors) requires a sample of bone marrow to be extracted from the hip in a simple operation under general anesthetic.

For those aged 16-30 you can join up to Anthony Nolan – turns out I’m too old for that (just,) but they send you a ‘spit kit’ in the post to get a tissue sample and sign you up to the register.

I’m registered with dkms – which was Delete Blood Cancer- I filled in a five minute form online and they sent me a cheek swab kit.

I had to take a cotton bud style swab and brush it around my cheek for a minute, then do the same on the other cheek. Both swabs go into a little envelop and I sent them back in the post. Now I just have to sit and wait.

According to the website only about five percent of people actually become donors – but I really hope that one day my stem cells will be able to help someone like May and her family. It’s simple and easy and you could save someone’s life – what’s not to like about that?

Go to dkms.org.uk or anthonynolan.org