Woman continues crusade for son

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 2

Woman continues crusade for son

f.X Z P.A. Staff Crspdt)

LONDON. Jan. 8. Fully recovered after | last month’s disappoint-* ment, when a potential; bone-marrow donor was: found to be unsuitable J for her four-year-old ( son. Mrs Shirley Nolan I is working haTder than’ ever at her life-saving; crusade. Her son. Anthony. Nolan, suffers from a rare disease ( called the Wiscott Aldrick syndrome. His blood is deficient in both white and 1 red cells, which means he is ! unable to fight off even a : common cold; and on top of this, he suffers from haemophilia. and could bleed to death from a bruise. Only a transplant of bone marrow of exactly the right (type can give him a chance of a normal life — and only • one person in 50,000 is ( likely to be a perfect match for a transplant. Last month, two days after the boy reached his fourth birthday (against all earlier medical predictions), a Samoan man. Mr Malo loane. flew to London from New Zealand after preliminary tests had indicated he might be the "man in a mil- 1 Jion” needed.

But four days of detailed tests ruled him out as a donor. His tissues did not match to the required last detail. “I have got over the dis-; appointment.” Mrs Nolan,: who is 24. said today from* her home in a Kent village.! “I am a realist. I have to be; — and now I’m working like! fury again.” Mrs Nolan brought her son to Britain from Adelaide in April, 1973, after reading of the successful treatment of another bone disease victim at London’s Westminster Hospital. She has made her mission: in life the promoting of a 1 campaign to finance the tes-j ting and registration of] thousands of potential! donors. Four technicians are' now laboriously classifying] the tissues and compiling the register. S6OOO a month But all this costs money — about $6OOO a month — and keeping money coming in occupies most of Mrs Nolan's time Obliged to keep her sen in virtual seclusion to avoid the danger of contact with disease, she also has to make sure he does not get into the scrapes that any

normal four-year-old could: be expected to survive. Flood of letters i Mrs Nolan said the public-1 ity which had surrounded J last month’s visit to London I by Mr loane — who was flown from Christchurch.* where he had been working] as a medical technician — had resulted in a flood of letters from Australia andl Britain. “I reply to them all,” she; said. “I have written about] 30 letters in the last two I days. People ask what they! can do to help, and I try to! suggest something.”

Groups of workers both in Australia and in Britain keep the money flowing in, raised by a wide range of activities.