UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 20 APRIL 2018
A 22-year-old Birmingham-based cancer survivor who received a life-saving bone marrow transplant from her brother has launched a musical campaign to help others.
Only two weeks before her 18th birthday, Beatrice Edwards was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, one of the most common cancers amongst 13-24 year olds. Beatrice was faced with numerous gruelling chemotherapies which proved unsuccessful, which is when she was told that she would need a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.
Now the university student is launching a music-based campaign to help raise awareness of the importance of people registering to donate bone marrow.
“I had to drop out and put my A-levels on hold”, said Beatrice, who is now in her final year studying for a media degree at Birmingham City University.
Beatrice was fortunate to have a 100% match from her brother. Now Beatrice has launched a musical campaign to encourage more people to join the register, in order to help the 70% of people who don’t have a donor match within their family.
Beatrice has started her campaign by encouraging members of an orchestra she plays in, The Peoples Orchestra, to join the stem cell register and to hold their next concert on 21 April at West Bromwich Town Hall in support of the campaign and to raise awareness of the Anthony Nolan and DKMS Foundation stem cell trusts.
Beatrice hopes to encourage other orchestras across the UK to raise awareness of stem cell trusts and consider signing up in her aim to save the lives of blood cancer patients, one orchestra at a time.
Beatrice wants to break the myth that being a bone marrow donor is a painful experience and educate people on how easy becoming a donor is, by sharing her story and campaign to as many people as possible and encouraging orchestras to become partners of her campaign.
Orchestras interested in getting involved and individuals wanting to sign up to the stem cell register can find out more at The Great Orchestra Adventure website.
Beatrice has also arranged a donor sign-up event with charity Anthony Nolan at Birmingham City University’s Curzon Building on Friday 27 April from 12 – 4pm.