Nearly 5000 Potential Donors Queue Up To Help 5 Year-Old With Rare Form Of Cancer

It can feel like a cruel, cold world out there sometimes, but every so often, a story comes along which rekindles your faith in humanity. This is certainly the case in this story coming out of England, where in a heartwarming turn of events, nearly 5,000 people turned out and queued in the rain in order to see if they were a donor match for a young boy suffering from cancer.

Following a heartfelt appeal from the parents of Oscar Saxelby-Lee, approximately 4,855 people braved cold weather conditions to check whether they were a stem-cell match for the five-year-old boy, who needs a donor very quickly to treat an aggressive and rare form of cancer.

It all started when Oscar’s parents noticed that he had quite a lot of bruising over his body. They took him to the doctors and they confirmed that the youngster was suffering with T-cell acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-ALL).

This was obviously devastating news for the young family, but they couldn’t afford to waste any time – they began looking for a donor straight away, on the advice of medical professionals that Oscar may only have months to get the help that he needs.

After an online appeal, more than 4,800 people queued up outside the Pitmaston Primary School near Worcester this weekend in the hope that a suitable donor might be found.

Oscar’s school teacher, Sarah Keating, said: “I’ve been teaching for 20 years and I’ve never had a child go through something like this. You hear about children getting cancer and you think ‘that’s dreadful’, then you move on. In this case we haven’t moved on, we will fight this.”

A teaching assistant at the school, Laura Senter, added: “I couldn’t believe it [Oscar’s diagnosis]. I saw him before Christmas and he was his usual happy-go-lucky self. It’s a nightmare for this to happen. You can’t really do anything about it, it’s heart-breaking.”

“If a child falls over and cuts their knee you can put a plaster on it. With something like this you can’t just fix it. That’s why we have gone into ‘action mode’ to try and find a donor.”

Laura spoke about going to visit the family in hospital:

“I visited Oscar in hospital last month when it was his birthday. All the parents bought gifts for him. Because of all the chemo he was very swollen but you could tell he was very much still him inside. When we came out we knew we needed to do everything we could to support him.”

DKMS, a charity that tests the potential donor swabs, has confirmed that this is the largest number of potential donors it has ever had in a single instance, and explained that the previous record at a registration event was 2,200 people – less than half of this new record.

What’s vital is that Oscar finds a suitable donor match as soon as possible, and the huge amount of people who turned out for the drive boosts the family’s chances immeasurably.

After Oscar’s diagnosis in December 2018, his parents – Olivia Saxelby and Jamie-Lee – launched the appeal, which they called ‘Hand in Hand for Oscar’, aimed at getting people to register to be a blood stem-cell donor.

Olivia said: “We felt like we could not see light at the end of the tunnel, but when looking at Oscar’s cheeky smile, bravery and determination, we managed to pull our strength together again.”

“From that moment of fear and confusion, we as a family became stronger than ever. Oscar reminded us how to fight again and just how courageous he is. Not once has he shown weakness, nor has he ceased to amaze us throughout the most difficult times and that to us is a true warrior.”

What an inspiring young boy.

“Oscar is a fun, loving, energetic five-year-old boy who deserves to live to the full alongside the other troopers fighting such horrific diseases. Not only does he need to enjoy a normal life a child should live, he now needs someone else to save him.”

Here’s hoping a donor is found and Oscar can get the treatment he needs as soon as possible. Huge love and respect to everyone who showed up in the hopes that they would match! You guys are the kind of people who make the world a better place.

Image credits: SWNS

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