‘I’m optimistic’: cancer patient given months to live hopes for stem cell match

John O’Connor says he was devastated to find out he had lower chance of finding a match due to his ethnicity

During a trip to the US in 2016, John O’Connor’s face became swollen and he initially thought he had been bitten. “The side of my neck where the lymph nodes are were basically like a golf ball,” he said.

When he returned to the UK, the condition of his skin began to deteriorate, leading O’Connor to be misdiagnosed as having eczema and psoriasis. It was only after seven years of sustained efforts to try to find out what was happening, suspecting that it could be leukaemia, that he and his wife were able to find some answers.