One morning in 2009, Makome Modiba was driving to work when he heard former SABMR Director Professor Du Toit discussing bone marrow on the radio. When Makome got to work, he discussed it with his colleagues and phoned the Registry, who referred him to a depot where he could do a blood test. By the […]

Every year on the anniversary of his transplant, Paul Mouton phones his old friend Francois, the man who saved his life.  Francois Dreyer registered as a donor in July 2002, when a friend of his was diagnosed with leukaemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully, his friend found a donor in Switzerland—and soon afterwards, […]

In 2002, Paul Mouton had a conversation that would change—and save— his life. After several rounds of chemotherapy failed to push back the Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma he’d been diagnosed with the year prior, Paul, 38 at the time, was referred to Professor Peter Jacobs at Constantiaberg Mediclinic. “Jacobs said, ‘I’m here to cure you,’” Paul […]

In 2016, Pieter Goosen discovered odd-looking freckles on his back. This, combined with fatigue and pain in his arms, encouraged him to visit his doctor. His doctor phoned to say that they had discovered new cells growing in his back, and that he needed to come to Pretoria immediately to be admitted into the hospital. […]

Sibongile Jimlongo, a 25-year-old law graduate from the University of Western Cape, has been a consistent blood donor since 2013. In 2016, she registered with the SABMR at a blood drive, and less than a year later, she got a call from the Registry saying she was a potential match. As a Xhosa woman, the […]

Twenty years ago, Ilza Wichmann was in varsity college studying international hotel management when she was recruited to go work in Disneyworld in Florida. But when Ilza left for America, many things went wrong: they struggled to secure plane tickets, her credit card wouldn’t work, and when they arrived in New York, a snowstorm struck. […]

When Zivile Nkatu was two months old, he started showing signs of illness. But for over a year doctors had no diagnosis, and Zivile spent long stays in the hospital without explanation. When that diagnosis finally came, it was worse than expected: leukaemia. Zivile’s mother Nello said the news came with a big learning curve. […]

While still an infant, Aaron Lipschitz was diagnosed with a metabolic absorption disorder. The disorder made him unable to tolerate any food besides a specialised hypoallergenic formula, which he received through an intravenous feeding tube. At age 3, after years of complications that baffled his doctors and twice-weekly hospital visits to receive immunoglobulin treatments, Aaron […]