Transplant girl: thank you for saving my life At the time of Victoria's illness, a bone marrow transplant was her only option. Her parents, Olga and Igor, took her out of school and travelled across Europe, desperate to find a doctor who could help their daughter. When they eventually arrived in England, the family had quite a culture shock. "It was just on the cusp of the USSR breaking down, so Latvia was quite different in those days," recalls Victoria. It was bleaker, I suppose. My initial impressions were of excitement - I'd never seen a mango, or been to a Sainsbury's supermarket. In October 1991, their journey brought them to Prof John Goldman, an expert in bone marrow transplants, then chair of the department of haematology at the Hammersmith Hospital in London. He agreed to treat Victoria - but they still had to find a compatible donor, with stem cells that matched hers, willing to undergo risky surgery to save her life. Bone marrow transplants were still a pioneering operation, with only about 200 performed in the UK annually. Thankfully, her sister Alina proved to be a suitable match. "They told us there was a one-in-four chance it would work," says Victoria. Alina was so young, but I knew she really wanted to help. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the family's worries. As Victoria wasn't eligible for treatment through the NHS, her parents would have to pay the £40,000 cost for the transplant themselves. Prof Goldman's assistant, Karen Linfield, was tasked with helping the family raise the funds. She remembers meeting "two bewildered little girls" who couldn't speak a word of English and were living in a Salvation Army hostel. "I didn't know where to start," she says. After writing to the Latvian embassy in London, Karen was put in touch with Jenny Rees, a journalist at the Telegraph, whose article about Victoria's transplant appeared on the front page of the newspaper. "I was gobsmacked by the response," remembers Karen, who recalls one wealthy donor even offering to pay the full cost. Donations came in from all over the country. Every day I'd pick up sacks of mail from the post room and sit on the floor of my office sorting through letters. Within a fortnight, enough money had been raised. As readers" donations continued to flood in, a charity, the Viktoria Trust (sic), was set up at Hammersmith Hospital, with extra funds totalling nearly £60,000 - later used to help other young people with leukaemia. Victoria's transplant went ahead on February 21, 1992, with her sister Alina by her side. The surgery involved "harvesting" stem cells from Victoria's bone marrow using a machine called a cell separator. She was given high-dose chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous bone marrow, while healthy stem cells from Alina's bone marrow were "sucked out" through a needle inserted into the hip bone and fed through a drip into her sister's bloodstream. Victoria says her memories of her time in hospital are "foggy." What stuck in my head were things any nine-year-old would remember: I got my first Barbie; we ate McDonald's for the second time in our lives. When I was in the isolation unit, everyone had to scrub up and come through sealed doors - it made me feel like an alien. Every year since, Victoria and her family have got together to remember the day of the surgery, which they now call "Life Day." It's a chance to remind ourselves how grateful we should be. Within four weeks the transplanted stem cells in Victoria's bone marrow started making new, healthy blood cells. Three months after the operation, she was well enough to go home. Her parents, who had initially sought temporary leave to remain ("a sort of medical asylum," says Victoria), applied for permanent residence in London so their daughter could return to hospital each week for medication. Two decades later, she still attends annual appointments for blood tests and bone density scans. "The risk was too high to go home - and I'm glad we stayed," explains Victoria, who now regularly volunteers for Leuka, the Hammersmith Hospital's leukaemia charity. It gave Alina and me a better future - by September 1992, we had started primary school in the UK. Back then, the operation was so new that they didn't know what would happen to me. In the two decades since Victoria's surgery, a lot has happened. CML is still rare in children, but a bone marrow transplant is no longer the only treatment option. Now, when CML is in its initial, or chronic, phase, patients are given a targeted drug called imatinib. This is a cancer growth inhibitor, widely used since 2001, which prevents the cancer cells from multiplying. In later stages, known as the "accelerated" and "blast" phases, a combination of chemotherapy drugs is injected intravenously to destroy the cancer. Prof Jane Apperley, who heads the department of haematology at Imperial College London, says CML treatment has "totally changed" since 1992. "At the time Victoria was diagnosed, the only curative therapy was a transplant," she explains. Transplant remains a very effective treatment, but now it's used in about 10 per cent of patients, whereas previously it was used for everybody who had a donor. Today patients take a daily tablet of tyrosine kinase inhibitors [such as imatinib] - and about 75 per cent respond well. Further trials in the UK and US are looking at alternatives for imatinib-resistant patients, such as omacetaxine and nilotinib. For Victoria, the medical advances in understanding and treating CML are a poignant reminder of her transplant. Tomorrow, it is 21 years to the day since she left hospital. She still keeps a copy of the photograph of the smiling nine-year-old who appeared in The Daily Telegraph that day, thanking readers and telling them that she felt lucky to be alive. "It's not just my story to tell - it's also my sister's and Karen Linfield's and all those Telegraph readers who donated," she says. Victoria and Alina recently moved in together, and the sisters continue to raise money for Leuka: last month, they helped to raise £381,000 at a charity auction in London, and next week they plan to run the London 10K for the third year running. "Some day, I want to find all the people who sent in money for my transplant and thank them," explains Victoria. After all they did for me, I want to give something back. Twenty- one years later, I reckon it's about time. leuka.org.uk