We have 3 teams entering this years marathon relay.  A fellow colleague (and relay team member) was fortunate enough to help save a persons life due to the sterling work DKMS do. 

One day in December 2017, I kept getting calls from a London number whilst I was in meetings and couldn't answer.

Call number 7 caught me with enough spare seconds to answer the call and be utterly blown away by what the person on the other end of the phone was telling me - somewhere in the world, a stranger required a bone marrow transplant as part of their cancer treatment to save their life, and I was their initial match.

I had joined the register via DKMS about 5 years ago at a local sign-up event and honestly hadn't given it a second thought since then.  Now my world was spinning around, my family & friends were amazed, naysayers screwed their face up and asked why you would put yourself through the operation, and I didn't know what to think.

Immediate blood tests confirmed me as an ideal match and just before christmas I had to fly to London for a series of medical tests to confirm I was fit and healthy to donate - I was poked, prodded, probed, weighed and x-rayed over the course of a rushed afternoon due to flight delays - and I passed.

So after a quiet christmas at home I was back in London just after the new year for the procedure. A general anaesthetic later, 1.5 litres of prime marrow was being taken from my hips and whisked across the world to be immediately given to the recipient.

It floored me.