THE BOXER’S mindset, says Reuben Muston, is one of discipline and dedication.
He should know. Reuben had his first fight at the age of 11 and by 14 was training with the national squad.
“In boxing, you hunker down and get on with it,” Reuben, now 20, from Reading, says.
Reuben could have been competing for Team GB at the Olympics in Paris this summer. But in March 2022, in the finals of the National Amateur Championships, Reuben, then 17, developed a nosebleed so bad that the match was stopped.
“The ref, my opponent and I were covered in blood,” he remembers. “When I woke the next morning, my bedroom looked like a murder scene. I thought I’d broken my nose.”
Reuben and his dad Dan went to A&E. His blood test results worried the doctors, so he was admitted to a ward.
Again, Reuben employed his boxing mentality – head down and get on with it. He’d been feeling fine – a bit tired, but he was studying for A-levels and training twice a day. He couldn’t have cancer.
So, seeking distraction from Netflix, he took things test by test, like a boxer focusing on the next round.
After Reuben had a bone marrow biopsy, his mum Cath and Dan were by his side for the results.
“When the consultant told us I had aplastic anaemia, I thought: ‘That’s a relief. I just need to eat more broccoli,’” he says.
Sadly not – aplastic anaemia is a rare, life-threatening condition in which the bone marrow and stem cells don’t produce enough red and white blood cells and platelets.
Reuben’s counts were so low he could have died within weeks. He needed a stem cell transplant.
“It was frightening but I told myself it was temporary,” he says.
A charity called Anthony Nolan matches people with donors through the world’s first stem cell register, set up in 1974 by a mother called Shirley Nolan trying to find a match for her son.
The charity has helped bring about more than 26,500 transplants around the world.
This year, Anthony Nolan celebrates its 50th anniversary with the goal of reaching one million donors on its stem cell register.
If you’re aged 16 to 30, join here and you’ll receive a swab pack. Take a sample and send it back – then you’ll be on the register until you’re 61.
“It’s so easy,” Reuben says. “You take a small swab from your mouth. Then, if you’re a match, you donate – which is just like giving blood.
“One of Dad’s mates from the building site signed up after seeing our posters when I was diagnosed – he’s just found out he’s a match.
“I’ve thanked him for donating – I’m proud that people who have come to the register through me are saving lives.”
Waiting for a match, immune-compromised Reuben was stuck at home, sitting his A-levels at the dining room table with an invigilator opposite.
On 30 pills a day, he was in and out of hospital for blood transfusions. But he stayed positive, encouraging hundreds of friends and fellow boxers to sign up to the register.
Then – the sucker punch – tests on Reuben’s mum and dad showed their bone marrow was really rare.
“Mum has 100 matches in the whole world and Dad only nine – combined, that meant I would never find a perfect match,” Reuben says.
“Doctors decided that even though Dad was only a five out of 10 match (known as a half or “haplo” match), he was our best option.”
Reuben’s mum has a long-term health condition which meant she couldn’t donate.
So Dan embarked on a health kick, joining a gym and taking vitamin supplements to boost stem cell production. And in March 2023, while Reuben had five days of chemo and two of radiotherapy to prepare for the transplant, he went into hospital to donate.
“The nurses told Dad that, because he was in his forties, it might take two days of sitting there with a tube in his arms to get the nine million cells they needed,” Reuben says.
“But, in one day, he donated 14 million. The vitamins worked.”
Dan’s super-cells were pumped into Reuben, whose temperature spiked to more than 107F as his immune system attacked the foreign bodies.
“The highest ever temperature on the ward,” Reuben says. “You have to stomach the illness for two days until you have chemo again. After three weeks, I was home. It all went well.”
More than well – just a year later, in March of this year, Reuben ran the London Marathon in three hours and thirty-five minutes.
He’s at the University of Reading now, studying Spanish and Economics. And he’s back in the boxing ring, training six days a week and dreaming of going to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
“My coach thinks I’m better than ever,” he says. “This whole experience has made me stronger and now I’m ready to take on the world.”
Are you under 30? Join the Anthony Nolan stem cell register at anthonynolan.org. Or donate – £40 enables Anthony Nolan to recruit another potential lifesaver to the register.
