‘We have a debt to pay’: Couple organise bone marrow drives across UK after transplant saves son

Parents whose two-year-old son has recovered from cancer after a bone marrow transplant are now “paying back their debt” to families who were not as lucky.

Sarah Cripps, 37, and her husband Kurt Cripps, 36, from East Croydon, have organised a “massive” bone marrow drive across the UK this Sunday for people to join the bone marrow register by doing a mouth swab. 

From 9am until 2pm, 15 drives will pop up across the country including one in the car park of Marks and Spencer in Purley Way, Croydon.

The couple, who will be at the Purley drive on Sunday, have twin sons, Teddy and George Cripps. At 18 months old, Teddy was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukaemia called AML, in April 2022.

Mrs Cripps said: “Teddy was having night sweats and I found some lumps on his head. It was all very weird, so I took him to the doctors.

“The next morning I had three missed calls at 7am. The doctor didn’t sugar coat anything, he said I needed to go straight to A&E with Teddy as there was a possibility he had leukaemia.”

Mrs Cripps’ cousin had died from leukaemia 10 years before.

She said: “Hearing those words – ‘your child has leukaemia’ – was almost worse for me because I had been there before and it didn’t go well.”

Teddy was taken to The Royal Marsden Hospital in Fulham Road, Chelsea, to start six rounds of chemotherapy. He was given a 13 per cent chance of survival.

Then doctors told Mrs and Mr Cripps they had found something else and Teddy would also need a bone marrow transplant.

Mrs Cripps said: “My first thought was, ‘it’s OK, he has a non-identical twin, of course that will be a match.

“But George wasn’t a match. My world fell apart.

“When you realise there is no drug the doctor can buy to cure your child, and that you are at the mercy of a stranger who wanted to do a nice thing one day months or weeks before, it’s terrifying.”

But Teddy had a few good matches and a recent one-year post-transplant checkup revealed that Teddy is still disease-free and has a 97 per cent chance of being completely cured.

Mrs Cripps said: “We met lots of children from lots of different backgrounds on the journey.

“BAME communities have a 20 per cent likelihood of getting a match for a transplant compared to caucasians, who have a 70 per cent match rate.

“We know too many children who died waiting for a donor. I swore when we came out of everything I’d do something to help. I had a debt to pay back.”

The 15 drives across the UK will be led by mums whose children have faced or are facing leukaemia.

Mrs Cripps said: “Leukaemia isn’t rare, it’s just rarely talked about. Hopefully these drives will just be a nice day where people can talk and learn and get together.”

The Purley drive has been set up in collaboration with DKMS, a registered charity and bone marrow registry. 

To find out more visit, https://swabtosaveachild.com

Pictured top: From left, Sarah Cripps with her son Teddy during his treatment, Teddy last month (Picture: Sarah Cripps)