Transplant is 'last hope for Amber' (From Oxford Mail)

Transplant is 'last hope for Amber'

9:30am Saturday 8th January 2011 in Oxford By Amanda Williams

Fleur Tinson and James Phillpott with their daughters Daisy, four, and 16-month-old Amber, who urgently needs a bone marrow transplant

“WE HAVE just weeks to save baby Amber’s life and we need your help.”

That’s the emotional plea from the parents of 15-month-old Amber Phillpott, whose leukaemia returned aggressively just as she looked set to make a recovery.

Now there are just weeks to find a bone marrow donor to try to save the young girl’s life.

Amber was diagnosed with leukaemia in October and had looked set to make a recovery after treatment at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

But on New Year’s Day, after a peaceful Christmas spent with her family, the toddler’s condition took a turn for the worse and doctors discovered the illness had returned aggressively.

They told her parents that a bone marrow transplant would be her last chance of a full recovery.

The family featured in the Oxford Mail last month when Amber’s father James Phillpott told about his fundraising exploits for the Children’s Hospital before finding out about his own daughter’s condition.

Now Mr Phillpott and partner Fleur Tinson, of Abingdon, have just weeks to find a donor.

The couple are urging people in Oxfordshire to sign up to the transplant register in the hope of saving their little girl’s life.

There are currently 7,337 donors on the Anthony Nolan register in the county.

Father-of-two Mr Phillpott said he had been told the most likely match for Amber would be her four-year-old sister Daisy.

But even this only holds out just a 25 per cent chance of Daisy being a match.

Mr Phillpott said: “To be honest, it’s a bit of a moving target at the moment.

“It depends on the next eight weeks and on the doctors getting Amber’s leuk-aemia into remission. And then we need to find a donor.

“We have been told because we live here and have roots here it’s more likely that we will find a match who already lives in Oxfordshire.

“We just want as many people as possible to sign up.

“If it can’t help Amber, then at least someone, somewhere will benefit from it.”

Keyboard player Mr Phillpott is the founder of Abingdon’s annual Yeah Baby! festival, which has raised more than £6,000 for the Oxford Children’s Hospital.

He came up with the idea for the event, which has been held in the town for the past two years, when a friend’s son was given life-saving treatment at the hospital, on the John Radcliffe site.

But in a cruel twist of fate, months later he was forced to call on the hospital’s expertise to help his seriously-ill daughter.

Leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow, which leads to an abnormal number of white blood cells in the blood. If left untreated, it causes fatal blood problems.

Mr Phillpott and Ms Tinson have pleaded for people to sign up to the Anthony Nolan register as soon as possible, not just for their own daughter, but others like her.

He said: “The more people that sign up, the more chance we have of finding a donor.

“And not just for Amber, but for hundreds of other people in her situation.”

Click the link below to join the register.