Members of Tenby Golf Club have raised £5,700 for Cure Leukaemia in support of the Club captain’s daughter, Carly Thomas

Carly’s father Neil was named Club Captain for 2017 and he championed Cure Leukaemia with members as the charity to support that year. Thankfully, after being treated at the Centre for Clinical Haematology since 2011, Carly is now living life and working at Nationwide in London. This is her Dad’s recollections of her diagnosis in his own words:

Carly started at Birmingham University in September 2011 to study for a Chemistry Degree. After a month or so in Birmingham Carly was referred to the Haematology Dept following a number of nosebleeds and severe bruising and general tiredness by her doctor.

She was initially seen by Dr. Jim Murray who after a number of consultations sent Carly for a Bone Marrow biopsy in the summer of 2012 which revealed that Carly had Myelodysplastic Syndrome a type of cancer in which the bone marrow does not make enough healthy blood cells and there are abnormal (blast) cells in the blood/and or bone marrow.

As a family we were devastated by this news and we and especially Carly remained very positive throughout the whole ordeal and were supported this time by specialist nurse Dave Waldron and his colleagues.

We were advised that Carly’s condition was curable and we were referred to Dr. Manoj Raghaven who advised us that she would need to have a course of full body radiation, chemotherapy and then a stem cell transplant. It was decided that Carly would take a year out of Uni and Carly’s elder sister Gemma was tested and fortunately was found to be a perfect match as a donor for the stem cell transplant.

In February 2013 the treatment and subsequent transplant took place at the QE Hospital and Carly spent her 20th birthday in hospital.

15 days after her transplant Carly was discharged and it was then a case of waiting and praying that the transplant had been a success.

Fortunately within a few weeks it was apparent that her recovery was going well and in September 2013 Carly resumed her studies and completed her Degree and graduated in the summer of 2015.

Carly continues to attend the Haematology Dept on an annual basis for check ups. Carly now works for in the Treasury Dept at the Nationwide in London and flies around the world meeting clients.

We as a family are very grateful for everything that was done for us during this very anxious time and when I became Captain of Tenby Golf Club for 2016/17 there was only ever going to be one cause that I would pick as my Captain’s Charity for my year in office. A number of fundraising events were undertaken with the main event being a Charity Golf Day in May 2017. I finished my year of office in September 2017 and had raised the sum of £5700 and a cheque for this amount payable to Cure Leukaemia has recently been donated.