Thanks for taking the time to visit Silverchip's JustGiving page. We have chosen The Christie as our charity of the year to raise funds through 2021 to support this fantastic cause.

The Christie sees over 44,000 patient visits each year and is one of Europe’s largest cancer centres and an international leader in research. The Christie charity provides enhanced services to The Christie hospital, over and above what the NHS can fund.

The Christie is particularly close to our hearts with our developer, Seb Smith, 24, who was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma after just turning 19 back in 2016.

Seb's story.

In 2016, I was diagnosed with stage 4, Hodgkins Lymphoma. After going through four types of Chemotherapy as an outpatient at The Christie, including a Stem Cell Transplant in 2018 with my sister as my donor, each was unsuccessful.

When the Stem Cell Transplant had failed, this left me with zero white blood cells. This meant I was extremely susceptible to infections and sepsis, which I ultimately got.

Because of this, I ended up being an inpatient at The Christie for six months. During my time at The Christie, I was diagnosed with appendicitis. This was very concerning as I had zero white blood cells to help me fight it off.

The brave surgeons had to take dramatic action to remove my appendix when I didn't have an immune system. The chance of a successful surgery was about 15-20%, but there was no alternative.

Fortunately, the procedure went ok. I had quite a few complications following on from it and still experience complications to this day but nothing too serious.

After a difficult conversation with the consultants, we had to resort to getting a second opinion from another consultant down in London about a rare treatment called, CD-34. They didn't have much evidence to back up the effectiveness but my Haemotology consultants wanted to try it anyway. Luckily for me, it worked.

Without the amazing efforts from everyone who helped me at The Christie, I wouldn't be typing this. The Christie saved my life.

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Please join us in supporting The Christie Charity and help save people like Seb by making a donation today.

https://www.silverchip.com/about-us/who-we-are