A NURSERY nurse is urging people in Banbury to sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust and give her the gift of life.

Lauren Gladden, 23, has Hodgkin Lymphoma, a form of cancer, and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant.

Chemotherapy has not worked and now doctors have told her a transplant is her only hope.

Miss Gladden, of Deene Close, Adderbury, said: “They have searched the UK register but at the moment they haven’t got a donor.

“They have said they have got the rest of the world register to look at.

“If I find a donor I can hopefully get back to normal and get back to life.

“Until I find a donor I have got to carry on having treatment.”

Doctors had hoped Miss Gladden’s sister Danielle would be a match, but after taking the test while travelling in Australia, it was found that she was not.

Now in order to find a donor, Miss Gladden has got behind charity the Anthony Nolan Trust to help her and others on the waiting list.

She wants as many 18 to 40-year-olds to sign up to the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Register in the hope they can save her life or someone else’s.

At the moment Miss Gladden has chemotherapy treatment to stop the disease spreading.

She is unable to work and suffers side-effects from the treatment including nausea and sickness, tiredness and fluid retention.

Miss Gladden said: “As soon as friends heard about the register lots of people were signing up.

“Even if they are not a match for me they can save someone else’s life.

“Being on the ward you see all the people who deserve another chance at life.

“I just have to stay strong and keep being positive.

“It’s not just for me.”

Miss Gladden was diagnosed in April 2008 after she found a lump on her shoulder.

Initially doctors thought she had pulled a muscle or a cyst, but a biopsy revealed it was leukaemia.

She said: “I had six months’ treatment at the Brodey Centre, Banbury, and it was looking good.

“But in January it flared up again, just as I was going back to work.”

She had intensive chemotherapy at the John Radcliffe Hospital followed by stem cell treatment using her own bone marrow, but it did not work.

Last Saturday, family friends organised a Anthony Nolan Trust recruitment day at Adderbury’s annual Party in the Park and more than 50 people signed up to the register.

Organiser Linda Leslie, who has known Lauren since she was a toddler, said: “Lauren is in need of a bone marrow transplant — when you know someone who needs something like this you tend to get involved.

“Lauren knows it is unlikely there will be a match from Party in the Park, but there are about 16,000 other people waiting for a bone marrow transplant so it may help one of them.”

l For information view anthonynolan.org.uk