Dad-of-two suffering from incurable blood cancer reunites with Irish relatives as bid to find lifesaving stem – The Irish Sun

A DAD-OF-TWO suffering with an incurable blood cancer has reunited with his Irish relatives following the launch of his campaign to find his lifesaving stem cell donor match.

Peter McCleave made headlines earlier this year after his son Max, 8, read a heartfelt letter on BBC urging the public to register as stem cell donors.

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The Cheshire native has now revealed that the Irish Sun helped him get in touch with some relatives in Belfast he'd never spoken to before.

He said: "I've had a couple of people get in touch on the back of your article, they're extended family members.

"So that's been very interesting sort of reconnecting the dots between our extended family back in Ireland.

"I knew there was family over there because of the various stories that follow any family I guess but it's really cool that they got in touch. It's been quite nice actually."

And he admitted that while there were no plans to visit his long lost connections just yet, "that will be on the cards at some point in the future".

Peter was diagnosed with Myeloma back in March 2017 and was told he only had seven years to live.

But the fitness fanatic refused to take the illness lying down and set up a website called 10,000 Donors which started the process of finding him a potential stem cell match, while also adding to the odds of other cancer patients in need of stem cells of finding their match as well.

The target was smashed within six months of the launch of the campaign and almost 33,000 have now been registered as donors with seven confirmed as matches for patients around the world.

Peter said: "We're over 32,000 now towards the new target of 100,000. We're almost hoping we can do what we do on a bigger scale so I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment.

"We topped the 10,000 in about six months which was nuts, didn't expect that and it's just gone on from there.

"It's going really well. It is pure numbers. The fact that out of 30,000 we've got seven matches is fantastic.

"Those matches are confirmed for patients somewhere else in the world. So Alex, a lad I used to work with, his stem cells are donated to a guy in America.

"We just to need to extrapolate that further and get 100,000, 500,000, 1million on there."

However, the rugby coach admits that it's "bittersweet" when he hears others have found matches when he has yet to find his but he hasn't lost hope.

Peter said: "It is a bit of a bittersweet one because obviously it's fantastic when you hear someone from the campaign has matched with a patient, that's always great to hear.

"But it's always a little bit sobering as well that I still haven't got my match but look, it is what is.

"I'm still very very optimistic that there is a match out there, I just have to go out and find them, spreading the message as far and wide as I can. I'm hopeful."

And Peter - whose granddad is from Belfast - is looking to take the campaign to the USA in a bid to find his match.

He said: "I haven't got my match yet. I need to be more targeted towards my genetic background, the Irish/Macanese sort of element which I'm sort of pushing at the moment.

"It just goes to show that it is working, it's just a case of broadening and widening the scale of the campaign.

"I'm hoping next year to go to America. With my heritage there's a population of people who live on the west coast, that are of the sort of genetic background that I'm looking for.

"America being what it is, it's big, it's vast, it's diverse so it's exactly what we're looking for.

"There's a big population of people and there's a big Irish community in America as well.

"It really ticks all the boxes in terms of diversity, potential matches for me and adding to the scale to the campaign."

However, Peter hasn't been lying low since the campaign launched and has since completed the Crumball Rally a 700-mile (1,126.5km) continental drive through France and Italy in a Ford Focus costing less than 200 (225).

And he managed to raise over 30,000 for the charity while also getting another 3,000 people registered for his website.

He said: "The big project this year was the Crumball Rally and that was a great success, managing to nurture this banger of a car around Europe.

"We managed to raise a lot of money for charity as well which is fantastic."

Peter has two sons Maxwell and Sebastian, 6, with his wife Jenny and he said his children are coping well with his illness.

He said: "They're good. They're really good, they're back in school which they're enjoying and they've been helping with the campaign as well.

"They'll come along and make posters and all sorts of things.

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"I'd rather they didn't have to but they want to which is really great."

Register as a stem cell donor here to help Peter find a match to give him more time with his sons.

Follow Peter's story at 10000donors.com.

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Dad-of-two suffering from incurable blood cancer reunites with Irish relatives as bid to find lifesaving stem - The Irish Sun