News, Hertfordshire
A young woman has made an urgent appeal for more people to become stem cell donors after learning she had cancer as she was planning her wedding.
Salma Shah, from Watford, Hertfordshire, said that in January, she had been trying on wedding dresses days before her diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
The keen runner, 45, said she had attributed bouts of ill health throughout 2024 to the mumps and perimenopause.
She recalled: “That same day that I’m packing to go to the hospital, I had to pack up my wedding dress, all the bridesmaids’ dresses – and return it.”
“Cancel the church, cancel the registry office, basically cancel the whole wedding plans,” she said.
“You just think it could never happen to you.”
Throughout the year she suffered a continuous run of viral infections and colds.
“To be honest, it wasn’t until the end of 2024 where it was just like my glands swelled up. My neck swelled up. Now, that was major telling sign,” she said.
Days after blood tests, her doctors told her she had leukaemia and would need six months off work for treatment.
She recalled: “I had literally gone from planning my wedding, sitting down with my fiance and being like: ‘come on, babe. You need to help me like sort out the wedding bits and the wedding organizing’ – to ‘you need to be the executive of my estate and I’m writing my will and planning my funeral’.”
Ms Shah is undergoing her fourth round of chemotherapy at University College London Hospital and is optimistic she is beginning to see signs of remission.
However, while the chemo can treat tumours, her bone marrow is still creating cells that become cancerous.
Doctors have told her she will need a stem cell transplant but no match has been found in her family or on an international database.
She appealed for people to register as donors, to help others with the same diagnosis, and compared stem cell donation to giving blood.
Ms Shah said: “80% to 90% of children who have cancer have acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, the same thing what I have.
“If I have the opportunity to perhaps be a voice and say ‘look, this is the situation out there,’ and kind of speak on their behalf. I mean, what more can can I do? At least that way there’s some purpose to it.”
