KAREN Hooke’s husband was diagnosed with cancer a week after Christmas Day.

There were almost no warning signs, she said. Jay, a 52-year-old mountain climber, began feeling unwell after the couple returned from a holiday to Mexico in November 2017. A blood test was ordered by his GP on December 21. A week later, doctors broke the news he had leukaemia.

Her husband “probably had two days to live”, said 49-year-old Karen. But a year later Jay is still battling the cancer thanks to doctors and nurses at Great Western Hospital’s stem cell transplant service.

On Saturday, Karen joined clinicians, patients and their families in marking the 20th anniversary of the life-saving transplant service at Swindon’s hospital

“His cancer isn’t curable, but they’re throwing everything at it,” Karen said.

“He’s mighty fit and extremely positive. It’s not going to beat him. It’s certainly not going to inconvenience him. It’s the positive mental attitude that helps.

“The staff are fantastic. Jay says it’s like coming home. I know I don’t have to worry with him being in hospital it’s like a family.”

Stem cell transplants are often the last hope for those suffering rarer cancers like Hodgkin Lymphoma, myeloma and leukaemia. Patients are given drugs to ensure doctors can remove the stem cells from their blood, then subjected to gruelling bouts of chemotherapy to ensure they can be transplanted back into the body.

The stem cells are harvested at a specialist unit inOxford, before they are pumped back into the patient during a month long stay in isolation at GWH.

The service has been available in Swindon for two decades and has won awards for the support it gives to patients. Dr Norbert Blesing, the consultant haematologist who set up the service in 1998, said: “The demand on the service has increased quite significantly. The technology itself has not changed that much. The fundamental principles have remained the same.

“We initially transplanted on average about four to five cases a year. Now it’s more like 20 to 22."

“People are more aware of the technique. The technique is safer because we’ve used it on many occasions and the diagnoses are done on more modern equipment. We have a good reputation, so maybe we’re getting more referrals.

“You extend the age range of patients. Usually when these techniques were introduced you would have said 65 years of age is the upper limit. But as we get more familiar with the technique you realise people of 65 can still be quite fit, people of 75 years of age can still be quite fit.

“We now look not so much at the age as the fitness of the patient.”

Now 41, Martyn Procter was still at university when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma in 1998. The father-of-one was among the first patients to be treated by Dr Blesing at the stem cell clinic at Princess Margaret Hospital.

“I was in hospital for the solar eclipse,” he said. “I remember the street lights going off, but I was on the wrong side of the hospital to see it.

“At the time, I was happy to be having the stem cell treatment, but it was a scary time. You didn’t know how long it was going to take and if there would be any problems afterwards. The team at PMH was brilliant, I can’t fault them at all.”

Now cured, software engineer Martyn, now living in Newbury, was officially discharged by Dr Blesing this summer.

Gillian Reeves, a grandmother-of-three from Stratton St Margaret, praised the GWH as absolutely brilliant. Two years ago, the 68-year-old was diagnosed with myeloma: “When the doctor told me, I couldn’t take it in. He was telling me all the treatments that could be done. I went outside and I just broke down.”