Forty years - and a wedding! Cheryl lives life to the full after ATG treatment

On 25 November 1985, in Zimbabwe, Cheryl was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia and told she would not survive beyond three months. Forty years later, she got married, and the man who treated her, Prof Ted Gordon Smith, was there to see it. Cheryl's new husband Steve shares their story...

25 November is a special day in our family. On 25 November 1985, my Cheryl was diagnosed with Very Severe Aplastic Anaemia (VSAA) and told she had three months to live.

She lived in Zimbabwe and was transferred to Cape Town for her initial treatment before being shipped to St George's hospital in Tooting, London. Here, she was put under the care of Professor Ted Gordon-Smith, without whom I would not be sharing this story.

Despite that brutal first diagnosis, Cheryl defied the odds and is still very much with us, forty years following that mercifully incorrect prognosis. In that time, she has relapsed twice but has been in remission for nearly twenty years now.

After twenty years together, I finally asked her to marry me in September 2024. Professor Ted Gordon-Smith was our guest of honour - the man who saved Cheryl - and without whom her son Steve, and consequently her granddaughter Olivia would never have been born. None of these people would be here had it not been for Ted, and I will be eternally grateful.

I hope that seeing us so happy on our wedding day provides encouragement to anyone recently diagnosed, to say it genuinely need not be the end. Sure, it's devastating news to receive at first but don't give up hope, especially today, where major advances have been made.

Aside from an occasional blood transfusion, Cheryl has only had ATG (in the early days) and then ciclosporin, which she will be on for the rest of her life. A small price to pay for a life.

Photos from Steve and Cheryl's wedding day