“Majorca is my reward” says Sue Lloyd-Roberts

The award-winning ground breaking BBC journalist and Majorcan hotel owner, Sue Lloyd-Roberts CBE, told the Bulletin yesterday that she can not wait to get back to Majorca now that a new stem cell donor has been found which should  help to end her battle against  an aggressive form of leukaemia.
Sue  was diagnosed with blood disorder, myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), back in January when she collapsed  at their boutique hotel, Can Reus, in Fornalutx and since then has been treated at  University College London Hospital.
Despite the blood disorder developing into leukaemia, Sue was left hopeful early on after she was told she could have a stem cell transplant because they had found a donor.
After undergoing two lots of chemotherapy in advance of the stem cell transplant, the 62-year-old was left devastated after her donor failed his medical examination. Sue  then had to urgently find a donor with the same tissue type - before her condition worsened.
But on 5 July, she received  some good news.
After visiting her doctors yesterday, Sue said that she had returned to Majorca for a few days a couple of months back but regretted it. “I was not able to enjoy the island as I am accustomed to so I am keeping returning to the island fully fit this autumn  as my reward. And I can’t wait.”
Her husband, BBC producer Nick Guthrie, explained that the stem cell match is 90 percent and that the process of transferring the stem cells from the donor to Sue will begin on 21 July.
“Obviously, it’s a complicated process and  we will then have to  wait to see if the host, which is Sue in this case, accepts the cells and her body responds positively to them.
“However, she, like all of us are over the moon. Like I said, it’s a 90 percent match, but we’re not clear of the woods yet.
“Before the transplant, Sue will have to under go one final and very fierce session of chemotherapy to blast any last traces of the leukaemia, to clean things up if you like, before the cells are transplanted and, once they have been removed from the donor they have to be transplanted into Sue within a period of 72 hours. Once that has been completed, we’ll just have to wait and see how she reacts. That is probably going to be around early August, so that is going to be a tense month and, if all goes well, she should be fully operation al two to three months later, so we’ll be able to return to Majorca in the autumn,” Nick explained.
“But we’re all happy and keeping our fingers crossed.”