Lewis Crossley was a much loved pupil at Wybunbury Delves School where I work. He was a bright, lively, charming, funny boy. He had a wide range of interests for someone so young. Like many young boys, football was a passion and he was a big Stoke City fan. He also had an interest in tractors from a very young age and knew all the makes. He loved dancing and had the makings of a promising artist.

Lewis was diagnosed with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (T-ALL) in October 2015 at only 5 years old. Further analysis showed it to be a less common sub-type known as ETP-ALL. He suffered many complications and illnesses in the first year but achieved remission in the first few months, only for the disease to come back a year later. Lewis underwent savage chemotherapy and managed to achieve another remission. This was quickly followed by a stem cell transplant in February 2017. After a gruelling 3 months in isolation, he was discharged home in May 2017 but the disease was discovered again in June 2017.

The devastating news then came that very little more could be done. As many lovely memories as possible were then made over the summer of 2017. Lewis became very ill in September 2017 and sadly he lost his battle on the 3rd November 2017.

This year Lewis would have been in Year 6 at Wybunbury Delves. We wanted to mark this year by fundraising for the Team Lewis Trust to honor Lewis’ memory by providing more research into T-ALL to develop new treatments and ultimately, raise cure rates. 

Blood cancer is the fifth most common type of cancer in the UK, with someone being diagnosed every 20 minutes. Only 30% of the blood cancer patients in need of blood stem cell donation find a donor within their family. The rest rely on the odds of finding a match on the UK stem cell registry. Finding a person with a matching tissue type for someone in need of a blood stem cell donation is not easy. With more than 17,000 known tissue characteristics, that can occur in millions of combinations, finding a matching donor can be like finding a needle in a haystack. There are around 2,000 people in the UK searching for a blood stem cell donation each year and over 37,000 people waiting worldwide. The more people that register as a potential donor, the better chances for blood cancer patients of finding a match.

To register as a donor all you need to do is click on this link; https://www.dkms.org.uk/en/register-now

To find out more information about Team Lewis Trust click on this link: https://www.teamlewistrust.org.uk/

Together we can make a difference. Please help us by donating as much as you like so we can stop wonderful human beings being savaged by this disease. And register with DKMS...it is a simple mouth swab, that is all it takes, and then you can help save a life.

THANK YOU so so much