Adiel Ismail, MountView
As the father of Dr Nabeelah Ismail, I need to express my gratitude to you, to the supporters of numerous bone-marrow donor drives and to the followers of @findingnabeelahskeeper on Instagram for their unwavering support received during the past eight months after she was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Nabeelah, a true warrior, has lost her battle with leukaemia just over a month ago.
I would call on what I believe was Nabeelah’s farewell message posted on Monday August 26, at the six-month anniversary of her diagnosis, to thank you. It reads as follows.
“To my amazing friends and extended family, for every single message, call, reach-out, donor drive, the @findingnabeelahskeeper initiative, for every visit, gift and bouquet of flowers I am not allowed to be around. To all, for every thought and prayer. Thank you. I believe that the silver lining in this is that more bone-marrow donors have been added to the South African bone marrow registry to potentially save more than 500 additional lives. Glory to God!”
Thank you to those who posted pictures all over the world in support of finding Nabeelah’s genetic twin for a bone-marrow stem-cell transplant. With your efforts, a few perfect matches were found for her. Sadly, just a few weeks before the transplant, Nabeelah developed septicaemia that led to her death on Tuesday September 17.
The pain that her death has left behind seemed unbearable. However, the large numbers of people who attended her funeral seemed to have brought some relief to the pain.
Finally, I am grateful to her relatives, friends and social media followers who have added 544 additional donors to the national bone marrow registry with the potential to save as many lives in future. This is indeed proof that Nabeelah’s death has definitely not been in vain.