Future rests on transfusion

STACY SQUIRES/The Press

HERE TO HEAL: Timaru's Troy Hardy, in isolation at the South Island Bone Marrow Transplant Unit in Christchurch with leukemia, holds a picture of daughter Rose, one of his key motivations for survival.

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Troy and Andrea Hardy want this to be a survival story.

Timaru man Troy is in isolation at the South Island Bone Marrow Transplant Unit in Christchurch with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) awaiting a ground-breaking double umbilical cord blood transfusion – his only hope for survival.

The 41-year-old chef and web designer has everything to live for, a loving wife and two beautiful daughters, one just a year old.

"I feel positive about the future, it all comes down to not getting an infection."

This time last year he had no idea what was around the corner. He was working as a chef at the South Canterbury Club and enjoying being a new dad to baby Rose.

At the beginning of this year he started getting boils that would not heal. After a battery of tests in May he received a phone call from Timaru Hospital that changed his life. He had leukemia – a rare form normally diagnosed in elderly people and that carried a high fatality rate.

"It was a complete shock to the system but I am feeling really positive.

"I know I will get through it."

His health insurer, Sovereign, has already paid out for a terminal illness.

Hardy has just had a bone marrow aspiration from his hip bone to see what effect chemotherapy last month has had.

His salvation, he believed, could come in January.

Umbilical cord blood flown from Europe was scheduled to be transfused into his system.

The transfusion would replenish his body with healthy white blood cells. With a high content of stem cells they would replicate quickly.

"The biggest risk is getting an infection because your body can't fight it.

"They have used this treatment around the world.

"In New Zealand they did do a double-cord transplant on an Indian girl who was about 18 in Auckland and she has survived," Hardy said.

Having gone from knowing nothing about leukemia to being in the position of searching for a bone marrow match, both Hardy and his wife, Andrea, want to raise awareness about the disease and the importance and joining the New Zealand Blood Service's bone marrow register.

"Troy is given platelets some days from donated blood," Andrea Hardy said.

"Even if this article only made a couple of people donate blood or join the bone marrow register, that would be great."

To follow Troy Hardy's journey visit his self-built website: www.thistledew.co.nz