Transplant boy still improving

Press, 14 March 1977, Page 7

Transplant boy still improving

NZPA London I t Almost two months after 1 his life-saving bone-marrow transplant operation in a j London hospital, it is still not < known when the 11-year-old I Auckland schoolboy. Leslie.) Dewhurst, will be’ able to 1 leave hospital. < "He is getting along fine.” said a spokesman at Hammer- I .smith Hospital. "But 1 think | he w'ill stay here for two or < three more weeks yet.” I The spokesman said Leslie < Dewhurst’s blood count was still rising, though not yeti] back to normal, and he was i making a good recovery. t A clear sign that no im- 1 mediate concern is felt fort rhe boy is that Dr Edward < Gordon-Smith and Dr Susan i Fairhead, the two anaemia t unit specialists who have I been in charge of him since /

he arrived in London oni Christmas Eve, are both on leave. Leslie, who suffered from plastic anaemia, a rare blood disease that threatened to kill him within six months, received the transplant from his brother, Peter, aged nine, on January 15. The doctors said at the time that they had set a target of 100 days after the operation before they would be prepared to pronounce it a total success. One of Leslie’s main daily preoccupations in his private room at rhe hospital is measuring his hair. Al] his| hair fell out as a result of, the drugs he had before the! operation. A spokesman said! it was growing well again,! and he enjoyed checking its] length with a tape measure i each morning.