YOUNG Olly Walls has gone through a lot in his six years and now the Commercial Primary School pupil is playing a vital role in raising awareness of the importance of stem cell donors.

Olly and his mum, Jen, were at a recent reception at the Scottish Parliament to celebrate the work being done by Anthony Nolan to ensure every patient in need of a transplant can find a life-saving donor.

When Olly was just eight-weeks-old, he was diagnosed with rare blood disorder Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) which attacks the immune system.

After undergoing chemotherapy, he required a bone marrow transplant. Without this, mum Jen said he would not have survived.

“Neither sibling was a match and we went to the Anthony Nolan register and found his donor from there,” she explained. “He was successfully transplanted five years ago and two years ago we got to meet his donor.”

With guidelines allowing you to meet up with the donor three years after the operation, the family met up with Rochdale man Luke Munro and were able to thank him personally.

“He is doing brilliantly now,” said Jen, of Park Avenue, Dunfermline. “He is an outgoing little boy. He has just started school – he went a year later because of everything that had happened to him.

“He was ready to go to school though. One good thing that has come out of all of this is he is a very sociable little boy as he is used to meeting lots of different people.

“He doesn’t get treatment as such now. He is on medication and he will be on this lifelong as his immune system will never be as good as other people’s. We go along to the kids’ hospital in Glasgow to the transplant unit every four months.”

Jen and Olly now devote a lot of time to raising awareness of Anthony Nolan in the hope that many others can receive the vital treatment they need.

“We do a fair bit of work for Anthony Nolan because it is because of them that he is here,” she added. “If Anthony Nolan was not there, he wouldn’t be alive. He has been to Parliament, he does things at the Police College – when the new recruits are there, he goes along and we speak there.

“Anthony Nolan use him all the time – he is a great performer. The disease Olly has is genetic so both myself and my husband must be carriers so the chances are that the other children could be carriers as well.

“We don’t know if we will need them again in the future so that is another reason why we support them so much.”

At the recent event at the Scottish Parliament, Olly and Jen met Dunfermline MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville.

She said there were currently 1,026 potential stem cell donors in Dunfermline registered with Anthony Nolan with 34 per cent being male and the average age being 32.

Shirley-Anne is hoping more West Fifers – particularly men aged 16-30 and people from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds – will consider registering as stem cell donors and make sure that a match is available for everyone in need of a transplant.

“I am very proud that Dunfermline has 1,026 people who have selflessly volunteered to give someone a second chance at life,” she said. “Donating stem cells is straightforward but it could make an enormous difference to someone with no other chance of a cure.

“Hearing from Olly and his mum about their experience first-hand, it’s clear that stem cell donations have a life-changing impact. I strongly hope that more people from our community will be inspired to sign up and show that together, we can provide a cure for blood cancer.”

For more information on signing up for with the Anthony Nolan register, visit www.anthonynolan.org.