A young family is urging the public to sign up to the bone marrow register as they endure an agonising wait for a match that could help save a cancer-suffering father's life. Martin Walker reports

PRECIOUS Niamh plays with her Paw Patrol figures, blissfully unaware of the unimaginable nightmare her parents are going through.

But the adorable youngster, with beautiful blonde curly hair and a smile to light up a room, will always be proud of her brave daddy.

For two of the three short years Niamh has been on this earth, her mum and dad have been dealing with a cruel blood cancer.

After beating it once already – and having raised nearly £23,000 to support blood cancer research in the process – Paul McGeary now faces the daunting battle of taking on acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APML) once again following its return in the summer.

The Northern Echo: AGONISING: Paul and Becky McGeary watch their three-year-old daughter Niamh play as they face the nightmare wait for news of a bone marrow match

Paul and Becky McGeary watch their three-year-old daughter Niamh play as they face the nightmare wait for news of a bone marrow match

After reaching remission from an initial diagnosis back in November 2014, the 34-year-old is currently undergoing chemotherapy once more at James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

With his treatment ongoing, the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, is carrying out a global search to find a bone marrow match which, if found, could improve his chances of preventing any further relapses and help him to make a complete recovery.

But after discovering some alarming statistics about the bone marrow register, Paul and his wife Becky are now launching a campaign to encourage more people to sign up.

While the register enjoys celebrity endorsements – including one of the world’s best-known footballers Cristiano Ronaldo – only around 600,000 people in the UK are currently on the register, which represents less than one per cent of the population.

Sporting a Stand Up To Cancer hoody, the maths teacher from Newton Aycliffe said: “It’s a massively under-subscribed database and we desperately need more people to register – not just for me, but for the many others out there who need a bone marrow transplant.

“We want to raise awareness of the donor register and dispel some myths that the general public has about being a donor.

“I naively assumed a donor had to be one of your nearest and dearest, and if I couldn’t find a match then unlucky. Since this has happened, I’ve learned that a donor could be my next door neighbour, or it could be someone on the other side of the world.

“Many people are put off donating bone marrow because it carries the stigma of a bone marrow extraction. But that’s not the case. You simply just give blood, and while they might not be a perfect match for me, they could be a match for someone in London, Germany, Scandinavia or the US.

“If a match is found then the donor gives more blood and that is then farmed by the experts and transplanted into the patient, so it’s not as harrowing a process as people think.

“I think people think to themselves ‘one more won’t hurt if I don’t register’. But we need to boost those numbers, to improve mine and other people’s chances of survival. Everyone needs to step forward and help us all out.”

As the search continues, Paul – currently on long-term leave from his job at Sedgefield Community College – faces an agonising wait for the phone to go.

“You keep a brave face on and get on with it, of course,” he said. “But you’re always thinking, is the phone going to ring? Why hasn’t it rung? Have they exhausted the search? Every day feels like a lottery.

“It’s something I don’t talk about among family. We try to look at the glass being half full. When I have moments on my own, in the car or late at night, thoughts do run through my head - that my wife could be left to raise my three-year-old daughter.

“We want to grow until we’re grey and old so she can look after us, so we need this donor to come forward, for her.”

During his ordeal, Paul’s rock has been his wife, 33-year-old Becky.

Like her husband, she puts on a brave face, but admits she also has her moments.

“Every now and then those dark thoughts do creep in – that I could be a widow and Niamh could be fatherless,” she says.

“The whole process has completely changed our life. We just take it day to day. We can’t look too far ahead, and it is hard to be a wife and a mother when you don’t have plans for the future.

“The waiting process is unbearable, and that’s why it’s so important for people to register. It could literally change someone’s life forever.”

After being initially diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago, Paul and Becky embarked on a fundraising campaign, dubbed Not One Inch, which hit a new milestone of £23,000 last weekend.

Paul added: “We’re trying to lead a normal life as much as we can, and the fundraising has given us something to focus on – to raise awareness and cash for research into this disease.

“It takes our minds off things, but it also serves as a reminder as to why we’re doing it.”

For more information visit www.anthonynolan.org and www.dkms.org.uk/en