A SCOTS teenager recovering from blood cancer broke down as she met the German donor whose stem cells saved her life.
Chloe Jarvis, 13, from Shotts, North Lanarkshire, met Roland Hauessler, 50, for the first time at an event in London aimed at increasing the pool of potential donors.
Chloe was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2008 and is now close to being given the all-clear thanks to the transplant she received a year later.
The operation was only possible after doctors found a 100% match in Mr Hauessler's donated stem cells.
Chloe said: "When I got told I was going to need a stem-cell treatment I remember just crying non-stop. Leading up to Christmas they told me they had found a match 100% which was a shock as they said I was a really rare type of leukaemia."
Mr Hauessler added: "I am very happy and proud to see Chloe healthy and happy. She is growing up as a teenager and makes her family and myself very happy."
Their meeting was organised by Delete Blood Cancer UK to highlight the need for more people to become stem-cell donors. A stem-cell donation is often the last hope for patients when chemotherapy and radiotherapy have failed.
Only 30% of these come from a donor within their family, the other 70% come via an unknown donor.
However, half of sufferers in the UK never find the life-saving match they need.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article