A farmer has appealed for a bone marrow match for his critically-ill seven-year-old son after doctors said 'nine months is too long to wait'.
In September 2021, then six-year-old Olcán Wilkes was diagnosed with a two in a million blood disorder called aplastic anaemia.
Due to the severity of his condition, doctors can’t be certain on how long Olcan can live without a transplant as any potential illness could be fatal.
The average death rate for those with the condition is 70% within one year.
To beat his life-threatening condition, his family are appealing for as many members of the public to become bone marrow donors as possible. A transplant is the only known cure.
As he waits to find a match, Olcán undergoes two-three platelet transfusions a week, blood transfusion every couple of weeks, and attends school remotely via a ‘robot’ from his home or hospital bed.
Living between Newent, Gloucestershire, and County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Olcán Wilkes was a normal six-year-old boy who loved football, playing with his friends and his four-year-old brother, Hunter.
In August 2021 his life changed forever after his parents noticed severe bruising over his body.
Following a number of tests and treatments, in September 2021, and at just six years’ old, Olcán was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia.
Aplastic anaemia is a life-threatening blood condition and a form of bone marrow failure, affecting just two in a million people.
The incredibly rare condition was the cause of death for Eleanor Roosevelt, the former First Lady of the United States, and Marie Curie, the famous physicist and chemist.
The average death rate for those with the condition is 70% within one year and 80% within five years for those under the age of 20, if untreated.
Olcán’s parents Sam Wilkes, a farmer, and Genevieve Wilkes, a senior project manager in the healthcare sector, are appealing to the public in their hope to help their son.
Sam said: “After Olcán’s diagnosis, it took a while for the severity of it all to sink in. We are desperate to encourage as many people as possible to take the two minutes it takes to register for the free swab, for Olcán and others like him.
"Those two minutes, and the time spent returning the swab, could quite literally save his young life."
It takes just minutes to become a bone marrow donor, with a simple online form to fill and painless mouth swab to return.
