Many of you are parents and can relate to my indescribable pain

My daughter, Aila, age 3 and a half is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant or a cord blood donor. Aila suffers from severe Aplastic Anaemia and her only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor.

Seven months ago Aila was like any other healthy, energetic, carefree, innocent child, but that changed in a matter of seconds when she was diagnosed with severe aplastic anaemia.

She is now a child dependent on blood and platelet transfusions whose every day is spent in hospital and isolation. She has undergone procedures, and had experiences that most of us will never even hear of.

As a parent I feel helpless and frustrated as if I’m fighting a hopeless, losing battle. Everyday I wake up worried what the day will bring, and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere nearer to finding a donor to save her.

Fear of infection means the only people Aila interacts with are her parents and the only place she can visit is the open spaces of an empty park; she plays on the slides and swings after dark when other children have gone home, and I’m in tears every time she asks why she’s in the dark and where the other children are.

We have to constantly make sure everything is clean, and things we take for granted like a walk need to be planned so that she’s not exposed to people; even in the heat, her buggy is fully covered with a rain cover.

One never imagines this could happen to them, but it does, and in seconds life collapses. A tragedy like this spares no one regardless of race, religion or financial status.

This is a heartfelt plea to all those who have children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, please help my baby!

Someone out there is a match, so please please come forward to register as a donor and save her life.

I am still in disbelief that this is happening to us and find it hard to write about her; one only hears about these stories, and never imagines this sort of thing would happen to them. I cannot stress enough how desperate I am to save the life of my daughter; the pain I feel is indescribable, something I would not have related to seven months ago. Please please help to save her life, and in the process we’d also be saving the lives of so many other children.

I cannot and will not lose her, and so will leave no stone unturned in an effort to find her a donor.

Shazia

If you would like to join the bone marrow register to help Aila and the many thousands of people who are searching for a bone marrow match world wide, then please click here to visit our Clinics page to check the dates of our next recruitment clinic. Thank You.