Waiting game for little Margot Martini after operation

It comes after hundreds of people flocked to a donor registration day in Wolverhampton yesterday inspired by Margot who is suffering from leukaemia. The 17-month-old began treatment for a bone marrow transplant on Friday at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Parents Yaser and Vicki, originally from Essington, today revealed they now face an anxious wait. Yaser said: "We have been told to expect six to eight weeks before we know the operation is a success. This is only day two."

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Margot was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia aged just 14 months.

Her family launched an appeal to find a bone marrow match and tens of thousands of people signed up to see if they could be a match before earlier this month it was announced a suitable donor had been found.

Yaser and Vicki, who were at the Mount Hotel in Tettenhall yesterday for the donor registration day, spoke of the ordeal.

Yaser said: "We found out on October 7 that Margot had leukaemia. We were told that none of our family were matches so we set out an appeal to find a matching bone marrow donor.

"We started the campaign on Christmas Eve and I think that was to our advantage really. It was the season of goodwill and people were in the festive spirit but even so we have been blown away by the support we have had."

Vicki added: "She's gone from an infant into a toddler while she's in hospital. She's starting to learn more words and one of those is 'sore'. It's so sad that a child of that age can say the word 'sore' and know what it means. But when you look at her pictures she's always smiling.