I'm too old!

Tweet

A few months ago a friend – who had retired early and was enjoying sailing around Europe with his wife – suffered a bad bout of pneumonia while in Kalamata, Greece. He was treated in hospital there and recovered and blamed it on a tiring leg of the voyage – but when they came home for Christmas he had further investigations and was diagnosed with leukaemia; specifically, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). ALL is quite a rare form of cancer and is more common in young children but can affect anyone. Conventional treatment uses steroids and chemotherapy. He has already had the first round of treatment, involving a six-week stay in hospital, and is due to go back for round two of chemotherapy next week. After that he would be put on a maintenance dose which could go on indefinitely, because the only real cure is a stem cell or bone marrow transplant. After chatting to him on the phone a couple of days ago I looked into registering as a stem cell donor. I am already a long-standing blood donor and stem cells can be extracted from blood so it didn’t seem too big a leap. Obviously the chances of being a match for my friend would be very small indeed but that’s not the point really. Anyway I read all about the process, but then unfortunately when I clicked the ‘check if you are eligible’ link I found I am way too old! Under the NHS Blood and Transplant service donors need to be between 17 and 40 years old. Well I showed willing I suppose. I can still donate blood at least. All rights reserved. © Text copyright Fleur 2026.