Bailiff Delroy Anglin, who shot to fame on the Channel 5 reality show, Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away! was flooded with support when it was revealed he was suffering from cancer.
But the popular bailiff is now in remission, and one step closer to recovery.
He announced in April that he’d been diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia, and that without a bone marrow donor, the diagnosis could be a death sentence.
His devastating announcement lead to a flood of people signing up to the donor registry, with an event on behalf of the Afro-Caribbean Leukaemia Trust in Croydon pulling in over 100 people in just two hours.
Read more: Hope for Can’t Pay? bailiff Delroy Anglin following cancer diagnosis
Bone marrow donations rely on a very close match, meaning patients must be matched with someone of a similar ethnicity. People of Afro-Caribbean descent often struggle to find a donor due to low numbers of people joining the bone marrow register.
The success rate of finding a match for Afro-Caribbean patients is around 20 percent – compared to 60-90 percent for white patients.
Speaking to the Croydon Advertiser in April, Delroy said, “You feel as if someone has pronounced a death sentence.”
“Life changed in an instant,” he continued. “When they tell you, you’re just hoping someone has made a mistake, but they haven’t. At the end of the day, unless somebody says differently – I’m terminal.”
But yesterday his colleagues at Direct Collection Bailiffs Limited announced via their twitter account that he’d made an important step on his road to recovery.
“**UPDATE ON DEL** Delroy Anglin is now in remission. He still has a long way to go but this is definitely a step in the right direction,” the tweet said.
Delroy’s illness was discovered when he went to the doctor complaining of a cold – claiming he’d been getting them far more frequently than was common. A blood test then revealed it to be a side effect of acute myeloid leukaemia.
The disease causes a dramatic increase in the production of white blood cells, throttling the creation of red cells, and ravaging the blood and bones.
Treatment includes aggressive chemotherapy, followed by a bone marrow transplant.
“I think I was in denial because I felt so fine,” Delroy said when he announced his diagnosis. “Life changed straight away, from diagnosis to entering the hospital was a matter of days. Your life just changes instantly. Everything is chaotic and it remains like that for while.”
He said he relied on the support of his family, including his mum’s home cooking. “She comes from a generation where leukaemia was a death sentence. But you get the home cooking from her and build up your strength – it’s funny how it never changes.”
He said he was surprised by the level of support from fans of the show. “It’s strange, people don’t usually like bailiffs,” he said. “But I have had so much support, from everyone including complete strangers.”
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His supporters banded together behind the hashtag #Match4Delroy, to encourage people to join the bone marrow register, with the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust stressing the need for registered donors from BAME backgrounds.
Donors can register online with Anthony Nolan or DKMS.