Anthony Nolan

In the space of 2 months, I was unfortunate enough to lose 2 friends to the same horrible disease, Hodgkins Lymphoma. Around the same time I heard about the Anthony Nolan Register.

"Anthony Nolan is a pioneering charity that saves the lives of people with blood cancer who need a blood stem cell, or bone marrow transplant. In 1974, Anthony Nolan's mother, Shirley, set up the world's first bone marrow register to match donors with people who desperately needed a transplant.

Now, every day, we help two people in need of a lifesaving transplant by using our register to find remarkable donors who have matching stem cells, or bone marrow.

We are a UK charity with international reach. We carry out world class research into stem cell matching and transplants to improve outcomes for all patients."
-anthonynolan.org

I went about doing my research about what it entailed and what I would have to do, reading through the criteria list I found that I was not eligible to be on the register. Why? I was classified as Severely Obese and having a BMI of over 35 meant that I wasn't able to donate. This gave me more motivation in my weight loss journey, this is something I wanted to do I want to be able to donate if I'm needed and even if I was never needed the option is there. I made this my next goal!

For a long time I floated around with a BMI of 35.1 which in all honesty was infuriating haha 0.1 is such a stupid number but considering I started with a BMI of 42.2 I was impressed with myself and even more motivated to burst out of the Severely Obese class of the BMI. 

On the 8th of September I stepped on the scale to see a weight of 223 pounds!! Otherwise known as a BMI of 34.9. I had done it! I am no longer Severely Obese and I am simply Obese (this will change!) and I met my goal and could sign up for Anthony Nolan! 

The application was fairly straight forward just filling in your details and some check boxes about your medical history, it was fairly short and didn't take much time at all. Today my spit kit landed on my door and I thought I'd tell you all about it.

 This is what it looks like just a little tub, it doesn't look like much at all.

This is whats inside, you have your little tube and you can see on the top there is a lid with some liquid that you mix up once you've collected your spit in the tube (pleasant I know!!) and then you remove that lid and put the little screw cap on.

Before I changed the caps the liquid from the top goes in and mixes with your saliva. 

And then you pop it in the little bag and post in back in the padded envelope, I did feel a bit nervous about the fact it said biohazard on it.

And thats it done! All I need to wait for now is my donor card. I do feel sort of proud of myself, I hope I'm a match for someone.

For Jane and Maurissa! 
xx