Nelly is my younger brother who loved life, loved football and having a laugh with the lads. I was a year older than him and we were not like a normal brother and sister we were more like best friends. We would go shopping together, play football for hours in the park and even bought out first car together. Nelly was about to start an apprenticeship for car engineering when our lives changed forever.

After having a blood test, Nelly was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukeamia at the age of 17.

Nelly went through numerous amounts of chemotherapy and radiotherapy however every time the leukeamia kept coming back it was more aggressive than the last time.

Finally 4 years later we received the news that a bone marrow match had been found in the USA, so we were finally able to go through a bone marrow transplant. Nelly had the transplant but his body rejected the bone marrow which caused him to have Graft vs Host Disease which made his health a whole lot worse and Nelly ended up in a wheelchair. He became so unwell that his immune system weakened which led him to develop Pneumonia.

Nelly then passed away at the age of 23 at12.40pm on 9th April 2009.

It is coming up to 10 years since his suffering ending and I thought this would be an ideal way to honour his memory and help others that are suffering from  Leukeamia.

#ripnelly