Finding a Donor

Hi Diamond Girl,

I like Paul had a 9/10 donor for my Allo last year. At first I was told that they couldn’t find one at all which was very stressful. They had tested both my siblings and neither was a full match so for a few weeks I didn’t think I had a single option. They then revisited my sisters and found she was a half match so it was looking like my only option was a Haplo from my sister.
Over the following weeks I underwent chemo to try and gain remission and it was during this period that they finally found the donor in Germany albeit a 9/10 match.
I was advised to go for that ahead of my sister for a few reasons. Although a Haplo transplant is showing the same results as a 10/10 with regards to less GvHD I was told the conditioning chemo regime is different and they believed it wouldn’t be strong enough as my cancer was proving quite stubborn. I was also told that the chances of graft failure were higher from a Haplo transplant so I decided to go with the advice. 
Ive had issues with GvHD but nothing we’ve not been able to control so far. 
Im now coming up to my first re-birthday and although it’s been tough I would definitely do it all again if I need to. 
Regards

Mark

Hi Diamond Girl,

daughters donor too, was from Germany. Her brother, our son, wasn’t a close enough match at all, he had insisted on being tested very early on (in fact in about 2005, when she had her auto).

daughter had 3 possible donors, one they couldn’t trace, one was pregnant so not able, the third was Thomas who happily helped. They told her at the time that he was such a good tissue match they called it 12/10! But his blood group was way the other end of the ABO spectrum so it took over 2 years for her type to change.

Hope you get success very soon

Hugs xxx