When The New Paper first interviewed him in 1996, he was 11 and about to get a life-saving bone marrow transplant. On the 20th anniversary of his transplant, TAN TAM MEI (tammei@sph.com.sg) catches up with the young man who overcame the odds
He would notice doctors at the National University Hospital speaking in hushed whispers around him.
Then only 11, Daniel Prior would tell himself, “Oh god, this must be it”.
He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a strain of aggressive blood cancer that did not respond well to chemotherapy.
Doctors told the Prior family that finding a bone marrow donor was their eldest son’s only chance of survival.
For six months, the family trudged through what his mother, Ms Jane Prior, described as a “ghastly tunnel”.
They kept a military-like schedule, with mum, dad and grandmother taking shifts and time out to care for the boy24/7 when he was warded for over six months.
The light at the end of the tunnel came when an Australian donor, whose bone marrow matched Mr Prior’s, was found.
This was done with the help of the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP), a non-profit organisation that manages the local database for volunteer donors.
The New Paper, which ran a report on Mr Prior when he first got a donor, caught up with Mr Prior, now 32, and his mother last Wednesday, just a week after the 20th anniversary of his “new life”.
The Singapore-born Mr Prior, whose mother is British and whose father is Australian, has two younger siblings, aged 30 and 28.
Recalling the grim months, he said: “When you’ve got tubes sticking out of your chest, even as a kid you know that something’s not normal.
“But every few weeks, we’d be celebrating a new milestone in my treatment, those were some of the better days.”
His mother added: “Everything back then is somewhat a blank… Every day, we just got up and did what we had to do.
“We told ourselves, ‘As long as there’s hope of a transplant, we’ll go on. Run, walk, march, don’t stop.'”
Ms Prior also admitted that not everyone is as lucky as her family, and that is one of the reasons she joined the BMDP as a full-time staff member four years ago. (See report, above.)
“It was six months of absolute terror, and after going through it all, I want to help others,” she said.
After the transplant in October 1996, Mr Prior took a two-year break from school to rebuild his immune system. He went on to complete his Higher School Certificate, the equivalent of A levels, and moved to Australia, where he got a degree in business.
Mr Prior worked in the hospitality sector in Sydney for nine years before recently returning to Singapore after completing a master’s degree in environmental management. He is looking for a job here.
Mr Prior, who also volunteers at BMDP, said: “(The transplant) was a cure. I’m 100 per cent back to normal.
“Perhaps the only new thing is that I’ve got the blood of a strapping blonde Australian woman running through me,” he added with a laugh.
The Priors now consider the bone marrow donor, Ms Pamela Elliott, 70, a part of the family.
They met for the first time in 1998 and have kept in contact ever since.
Ms Elliott, who lives in Queensland, Australia, told TNP via e-mail that she never thought she would one day save a young boy’s life.
She said: “There was never any question whether I would go through with the donation and it was explained to me that there may be some pain afterwards. There wasn’t, by the way.
“My only concern was keeping healthy in the two weeks before donation day. If anything happened to me in that period, Daniel would have no chance.”
The mother of two adult children, who has since become a grandmother of four, added: “I was so thankful that I was needed for Daniel.
“In a way, I had been in the right place at the right time, that itself was a pretty humbling experience.”
