Marta's parents and her sister María took her to the paediatrician because she was feeling very tired and had throat infections and never seemed to get better.  After sending her to casualty where she underwent a series of tests, they were given the terrible results: 5% blasts in the bone marrow, but none in the peripheral blood, which meant that in the future, in a month, a year, three year's time... she was going to need a bone marrow transplant. She was diagnosed with Juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia.  The prognosis was very bad and there was no possibility of an autologous-transplant.

Yolanda explains: "The day before going into hospital, I told Marta that inside her body she had some good bugs and bad bugs and that the bad ones were winning.  The reason why we had to go to hospital was so that the doctors and the medicines could help the good bugs.  I told her that the more she laughed the more bad bugs would die. Whilst hospitalized, her laughter could be heard all over the ward, one evening, when we were both alone, she said: "Mummy, we certainly have killed a lot of bad bugs today, haven't we?"  One day, the doctors explained to Marta's family that she needed a bone marrow transplant but that none of them were compatible.  The Bone Marrow Donors Registry, managed by the José Carreras Foundation, processed the search for a voluntary donor.  Shortly after, Marta at last had a possibility: a compatible umbilical cord blood unit from a Belgian donor.

July 2001.

Help people like Marta by becoming a member of the cure for leukaemia and haematological malignacies, HERE.  You will help us to continue our research so that one day these diseases will be 100% curable.  With only a little you can do so much. Thank you!

Find out more about bone marrow donation, HERE