Newly wed Archway doctor in desperate plea for bone marrow

Tania Ba-Obeid in hospital (Image: Archant)

Tania Ba-Obeid, 32, a doctor from Junction Road, Archway, is battling lymphoma - a rare type of cancer - for the third time after twice being given the all-clear. Now she has been told she needs a transplant in the next few months, but because she is of an ethnic minority - her mother is Filipino and her father is from Yemen and half Indonesian - Dr Ba-Obeid is struggling to find a match.

She said: “Two years ago it seemed like I had the world in my hands - I had just got engaged, our offer for a house was accepted, I had good career prospects and then there it came, like a train crash. After two years of chemo and two relapses my life is now on hold and the priority is just to stay alive.”

She developed flu-like symptoms but did not know what was wrong until finally she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma just after her 30th birthday in December 2012. Dr Ba-Obeid said: “It was the worst nightmare ever.”

After months of treatment she was in remission, but a few months later she was told the disease had returned. More chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant followed. It seemed like she was cured and she married her partner, William Ringer. But the cancer returned.

She said. “It’s torture – there is a sense of desperation. I hope that by sharing my story I will be one small step towards getting closer to finding a donor. If anyone is thinking of joining I would say ‘don’t think about it – just do it’. It would mean the absolute world to me. It would mean the difference between living a life and not. It would mean more to me than they could ever know.” For information about joining the bone marrow donor register, visit anthonynolan.org.