Student’s heartfelt mission to help raise awareness
A Teesside University student whose baby son is fighting a rare blood cancer is helping to raise vital funds to find bone marrow donors.
Katie Jordan’s one-year-old son Mason Arrowsmith was diagnosed with Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (JMML) on Christmas Eve last year.
The condition is a rare type of slowly developing blood cancer which occurs in young children. Although discovered at an early stage, doctors say Mason needs a stem cell or bone marrow transplant for the best chance of survival.
Katie, 23, from Stockton, a final year BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies student, is now helping to raise funds and awareness about how people can help save children's lives by signing up to become a bone marrow donor.
A possible stem cell donor was recently found as a match, meaning 22-month-old Mason's treatment can soon start.
Katie and her family are continuing to raise funds to encourage people to support cancer charity Anthony Nolan, to help raise fund to add more donors to the stem cell register.
Katie has shown so much resilience during what must be such a distressing time for all of her family
They have already raised £16,000 which they hope can be used by the charity to help to cover the cost of registration kits to add more people to its register, as the impact of COVID-19 has created a huge backlog of potential donors.
Rebecca Walters, Senior Lecturer in Education in the University’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law, said: “Katie has shown so much resilience during what must be such a distressing time for all of her family. Hopefully her fundraising efforts will help to raise awareness in helping to encourage more people to consider signing up to be a donor.”
More information Mason’s Mission
