A FATHER has begun donating stem cells to his daughter who has cancer in a procedure never carried out before in Scotland.
Mackenzie Furniss, nine, is suffering from an advanced form of childhood cancer but has a last chance of life thanks to a £300,000 treatment devised by a German doctor.
Her father, Jason, 39, has given his stem cells to be used in a bid to eradicate the life-threatening cancer.
Mr Furniss and his wife, Kimberley, 29, from Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, raised £178,000 towards the treatment before the Scottish Government stepped in with the rest.
The German professor who devised the treatment, Peter Lang, arranged for the treatment to be carried out at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, Glasgow.
It is the first time the procedure - haploidentical stem cell transplantation - has been carried out north of the Border and only the second time in the UK.
Mackenzie's treatment started on Thursday and is expected to take six months, including six trips to Professor Lang's clinic near Stuttgart where she will have antibody treatment to reduce the risk of her father's stem cells being rejected.
Mrs Furniss said: "We are just looking forward to the treatment being finished. Mackenzie just wants it to be over now. It's not a simple procedure, and we know it will take a while.
"Mackenzie really just wants to get back to normal and see her friends and go and play."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article