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Big Kids

01st Feb 2018

Seven-year-old girl with rare blood disorder needs a hero to save her life

Jade Hayden

blood disorder

A seven-year-old girl with a rare blood disorder needs a hero to save her life.

Chloe Gray was diagnosed with Diamond Blackfan Anaemia when she was still in the womb.

The rare disorder means that she can’t produce enough red blood cells and is in desperate need of a stem cell transplant.

Doctors gave the Sunderland girl just 10 hours to live, but seven years later, she is still here having survived thanks to blood transfusions.

However, her body has recently started to reject those transfusions.

Her family have started the hashtag #AHeroForChloe, to try and find a donor for a stem cell transplant.

The Anthony Nolan cancer research charity has said that Chloe’s donor will most likely be a young man.

“Although Chloe, who loves Disney, princesses and make-up, has three siblings, none of them have a matching tissue type to hers.

“This means she will be reliant on the blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan to find a match from the stem cell donor register. Her anonymous hero is most likely to be a young man, as they make the best donors.

“However, young men make up just 15 percent of the donor register – meaning more young male donors are urgently needed.”

Chloe’s parents, Francesca and Craig Bowser, want their daughter to have a normal life where she doesn’t have to spend all of her time in hospital.

They told the charity:

“Finding a donor would mean she gets quality of life back – she can’t swim, go on rides, or do normal things that her brothers and sister can.

“We want to give her back some of the childhood that she’s missed.”

Potential donors can join the Anthony Nolan register here. 

Feature image via Facebook.