Jacob Hawley at the Anthony Nolan awards event

A COMEDIAN is calling for people to sign up to the stem cell register after his own donation saved a life.

Jacob Hawley is a stand-up comedian (Ladwood, and The Russel Howard Hour) who lives in Holloway. Last week he won Donor Champion of the Year at the Anthony Nolan Supporter Awards for the work he’s done with the charity since making a life-saving donation of stem cells.

Mr Hawley signed up to the stem cell register at university without giving it much thought. In 2016 he was told he was a life-saving match for someone. Two years later that person – Susan – got in touch with him all the way from Canada.

“I was sat on a train having a tin of Kronenburg after a gig, thinking ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be home in an hour.’ But then suddenly, your whole life gets flipped upside down.

“It was just this long thank you message. I just remember bawling my eyes out on the train from Devon back to London. To be perfectly honest with you, it’s too seismic a thing to really comprehend.

“I FaceTime Susan, I speak to her husband, I’ve seen pictures of her children, you know, she was one of the first calls I made when both of my kids were born. I know she’s real. But the weight of knowing that she’s only here because of that donation, I can’t comprehend that,” he said.

Mr Hawley wants to encourage more people to come forward and sign up to the register.

“From a selfish perspective, because obviously the most important thing is that it happened for Susan, but for me, this has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me,” he said.

He added: “I can’t stress enough how easy it is, how comfortable it is, and how much you’d regret it if you didn’t do it, and how much potential you have to help someone and be part of something incredible.

“In my case, I got called to go into a private hospital on Harley Street, which is nicer than most of the hotels I go on holiday to. You get the freshest orange juice you’ve ever seen in your life, and a doctor that looks like he’s just come off Love Island talks you through the process.

“You lie on a bed with one tube going in one arm taking blood and plasma out, that goes up into a machine above your head, it spins around and gets what it needs out of the plasma that it creates the stem cells from, and then they put it back in the other arm.

“You do an afternoon and morning session, roughly three hours each, and you even get a lovely lunch in the middle of it.”

Brenda: It’s time to ramp up campaign

Brenda McKenzie has appealed for a life-saving stem cell donation to treat her rare blood cancer

A WOMAN with a rare form of cancer says the campaign for black people to donate stem cells must be bigger, writes Izzy Rowley.

Brenda McKenzie, a Highbury resident, was featured on the Tribune’s front page three weeks ago for her appeal for a life-saving stem cell donation to treat her rare blood cancer.

“There needs to be a bigger campaign to get the black community to donate. We’ve been here a long time. The drive needs to be bigger … We need something that cries out ‘You need to give stem cells. We, as the black community, need to donate’,” she said.

Since her appeal in the Tribune, one person has contacted the paper directly to reach out to Ms McKenzie, and hopefully more have registered as donors.

She added: “I was really taken aback that somebody actually came forward who wanted to just come and donate their stem cells. It felt really good to know that there is that help there.”

She added: “My health looks good for the moment. But, obviously, with the very rare blood cancer, anything can change.”
Join the stem cell register at https://aclt.org/donate/join-the-stem-cell-register/