Woman with cancer asks stem cell donors to sign up

June Hoey says the first step to being well again is finding a donor

A mother who is desperate for a transplant after a 12-year battle with cancer, has urged people to volunteer to donate stem cells.

June Hoey, 56, from Northampton, needs a transplant to help her fight Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The British Bone Marrow Registry is now called the NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry, and Ms Hoey is trying to make people aware of the change of name.

She said if more people signed up, people like her would have a better chance of a longer life.

Ms Hoey has undertaken three rounds of chemotherapy in an attempt to treat her cancer.

She now needs a stem cell transplant to replace cells damaged by the chemotherapy and to treat the lymphoma.

For a successful transplant, both donor and recipient need matching tissue types, which can be hard to find.

Ms Hoey was first diagnosed after finding a lump under her armpit just as her daughter Lucy, now 23, was about to start secondary school.

She said: “I brushed it off at first until I had an appointment at the hospital and saw women waiting who had lost their hair – it hit much harder then.”

She was put on a monitoring programme for five years, but noticed lumps on her neck in 2017 and started a six-month course of chemotherapy.

She was admitted to hospital with breathlessness in 2022 and put on a second course of chemotherapy.

She started a third round when the cancer returned six months later.

She said: “The first step towards being well again is to find that stem cell donor and I really do hope there is a match waiting on the register for me.

"The more people who sign up, the more chance that people like me will have of being able to get the treatment that we need to be able to feel well again and enjoy time with our loved ones.

“Please, if you are eligible, think about registering to donate your stem cells – you can save somebody’s life.”