Baby Reign returns home to Barry after seven months at Newcastle children's hopsital

By Ellyn Wright

3rd Mar 2021 | Local News

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Reign Miller-Hardy, an 18-month-old with the rare disease HLH XLP1, has come home to Barry after spending seven months at a Newcastle children's hospital.

A massive drive for bone marrow donors resulted in finding a live-saving 9/10 match for Reign to combat his rare genetic condition.

He will require lifelong medication to ensure no complications due to the transplant arise, but he has otherwise been given the all-clear.

Reign was airlifted to Great North Children's Hospital for treatment in August last year from University Hospital Wales.

He had four sessions of stem cell transplantation and doctors were also able to save some of Reign's own healthy T cells to put in along with the donor cells.

Reign and his parents left Newcastle today and arrived back in Barry at 3pm, where family and friends waited to greet them.

"Because of lockdown and then him being taken to Newcastle, we hadn't seen him for over a year," Reign's great-aunt Lisa Evans told Nub News.

Lisa led the social media campaign to find a match for Reign. She says at one point, his chances of survival were "one-in-a-million".

"Seeing him today was absolutely amazing - he was all happy and full of smiles.

"I've been crying all day."

Reign's young cousins, Ollie and Lily, were also present to welcome their relative back to Barry.

"He's so cute," said Lilly (8). "I can't believe how big he is."

The people of Barry, who have been praying for Reign's recovery since last year, have taken to social media to express their joy.

"Welcome home handsome little man," one said.

"Some lovely news for a change."

Primary Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) causes the body to react inappropriately to some form of trigger, usually an infection.

Specialised white blood cells become overactivated, causing severe inflammation and damage to areas such as the liver, spleen and bone marrow.

     

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