When Pete McCleave set out to find the person who could save his life, he never would have imagined that he would save the lives of 20 other people along the way.
The dad of two from Bunbury, Cheshire, has been in a race against time for the last six years after doctors diagnosed him with Myeloma, bone marrow cancer.
Pete, 45, was told he had seven years to live in 2017 and that his best chance of survival was finding a stem cell donor, with a perfect match to his own genetic code.
But in setting out to get more people on the stem cell register in a bid to find his ‘genetic twin’ he has found donors for more than 20 others around the world.
He told the Mirror: “To know that 20 people have found their match because of this work is phenomenal and I am immensely proud.”
The former investment banker added: “Having spent so much of my career doing something which didn’t have much emotional substance behind it, to now be able to do something which has value beyond earning a salary is just fantastic.
“It has more fulfilment than any job I’ve done in the past because it is life changing.
“For people to pick up the phone and hear we have found their match, I can only imagine how they feel.”
Initially Pete was warned that his target to find 10,000 new donors was “unachievable”.
But he did it in a matter of months - and then added another zero to his target.
By the start of this year another 100,000 people had signed up to be donors.
In the last six years he’s raced around the world and the Nurburgring, done a wing walk and raised £40,000 for DKMS blood cancer charity, all in aid of raising awareness of stem cell donation.
His latest mission has been launching the ‘Gob for Good’ campaign to get people from more varied ethnic backgrounds on the register.
But while his own donor search continues, Pete, his wife, Jen, and two sons, Max, 13, and Seb, 10, are all conscious he received his seven year prognosis six years ago.
Recalling a recent chat with his youngest son, Pete said: “He put two and two together and worked out that if I was diagnosed in 2017 and given seven years to live that I might not be here next year, and he struggled with that.
“I was taking him to football a few weeks ago and he broke down about it.
“Next year has been looming on the horizon ever since the diagnosis and that does mess with your head, but my way to get around it is not to dwell too much.
“I am hugely optimistic and the way I’m feeling I will totally be here next year.”
Pete’s cancer was unearthed thanks to an Iron Man triathlon which left him in hospital with sepsis, pneumonia and Legionnaires disease.
The “aches and pains of training” were actually lesions all over his skeleton caused by the cancer.
He recalls how his doctor reassured him that the odds for finding a match for a white British man his age were on his side.
But Pete who has an English, Irish and Macanese heritage knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.
During eight months of gruelling chemotherapy, Pete went through the emotions of anger and frustration, questioning “why me?”.
But when he left hospital in June 2018 he had a newfound sense of clarity and purpose - he was going to get 10,000 people to join the stem cell register.
He said: “In the early days I felt like there had been an injustice brought against me.
“But then instead of asking ‘why me?’, I started asking ‘why not me?’ I’m not special.
“I want to find my match but being realistic about the odds and my own mixed race heritage, it’s significantly more difficult.
“My match is out there but I’m going to really struggle to find them. The campaign is bigger than one person.
“It started as finding a match for me but when it became apparent we were making a difference for other people it was a no brainer to carry on.
“The last thing I want my kids to remember about me is that he just gave up and didn’t do anything, if I can’t be a role model for them when they’re older, the least I can do is be a role model for them today.
“Being a good dad that’s in my control, so is talking about stem cells, if my match comes around in the process that’s amazing.”
