Born with a rare blood disorder, 10-year-old boy

Oliver Bayliss has spent most of life in and out of hospital.

Suffering from Severe Congenital Neutropenia condition meant that he was susceptible to infections as his blood was deficient in white blood cells and unable to fight bacteria.

It is quite a rare condition and his parents, Paul and Sharon Bayliss, only know of two other families in the UK that have similar problems.

Now Oliver and his family have been given a special treat as they have just returned from a dream holiday skiing in Italy, paid for by the 'Make a Wish Foundation'.

Oliver's grandmother is Dorothy Bayliss from Cross Ash, whose tri-charity fundraising for Diabetes UK, DELTA (Deaf Education through Listening and Talking) and Great Ormond Street Children's Charity has taken a pivotal role in her life.

She has raised close to £10,000 over the years and is now organising 'Razzle Dazzle', an evening of sparkle, music and bow-tie. The ladies are asked to wear something sparkly and the men a bow-tie, not necessarily with evening dress.

Paul and Sharon, now live in Horsham, West Sussex but are both former pupils of Monmouth Comprehensive School. Sharon's dad Phil 'Moggsy' Morgan explained that Oliver is now in remission for another three years: "He still has to go back to Great Ormond Street Hospital but the doctors are happy with his progress, the check-ups are all clear so we are feeling pretty good about the situation. The signs are looking good," said Paul.

For the first five years of his life, Oliver was going into hospital for a week every two months to be pumped with antibiotics as he would pick up every bacterial infection going.

Continued on Page 2

Every day he had an injection of Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) which stimulates the bone marrow to produce blood neutrophelia.

Doctors warned Oliver's parents it would turn into a form of leukemia, which it did, and two years ago he had a bone marrow transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital when a match with a female donor in Germany was rated at a six out of 10 match.

A better umbilical- cord match of eight out of ten had been found for him previously, but had been given to someone else meanwhile.