Dragons RFC were saddened to hear that Wales 7s international Ethan Davies, 28, has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and urgently needs to find a matching blood stem cell donor.
The whole Dragons community are right behind Ethan and his family and we want to help by sharing his story and raise awareness to hopefully find his perfect match, so here is Ethan’s story.
Ethan, who lives with his girlfriend Charlotte, is an ex-professional rugby player. He played on the Sevens World Series from 2015-2020, and is one of Wales’ all-time top point scorers. He has represented Wales at various international championships including the Under 20s Six Nations, the World Cup in New Zealand, Sevens World Cup in San Francisco and Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Ethan has played semi-professionally for Pontypool whilst training as an electrician. In February 2022, he started experiencing signs of thrombocytopenia (deficiency of platelets in the blood), which doctors assumed at the time was caused by a viral infection.
After a short course of medication, it was assumed that the condition was resolved as his platelet count had returned to a healthy level. The low platelet count resurfaced in June, worse than before, accompanied by a very sore ‘stomach’ after eating, so he was put back on a course of steroids and immunoglobulin, though this time they had little effect.
It was only when presenting at A&E in July and being given a CT scan that doctors realised Ethan’s spleen had enlarged to twice its normal size, and he was admitted for testing to discover a root cause. After various blood and bone marrow tests and further scans, Ethan was diagnosed with the blood cancer Hepatosplenic T cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
Delays in receiving the full results of his bone marrow biopsy meant that Ethan had to wait a number of weeks between the first, partial diagnosis and starting treatment. He is due to start his first round of intensive chemotherapy on 23 August. He will need further chemotherapy and a blood stem cell transplant from a donor later this year.
If you’re aged 17-55 and in general good health, please consider joining the register by following the link HERE. You may be Ethan’s perfect match.
