LIKE many children their age, two boys excitedly run around the garden proudly showing off the sunflowers.

Brothers Marley Nicholls, six, and his brother George, four, from Bettws in Newport share a close bond, but Marley is battling the rare blood condition aplastic anaemia which means it’s a race against time to find a matching bone marrow donor for a transplant.

“It was totally out of the blue,” his mum Shaney Truman said about the diagnosis.

“I genuinely wouldn’t wish this on anyone. With kids it’s not fair and it is rubbish that this has to be part of his childhood, but we just get on with it.

“It is heartbreaking, but he’s doing really well at the moment.”

Marley’s condition means he needs a bone marrow transplant and without it doctors said he could die in the next two or three years.

“Time is of the essence and finding a donor is the only thing that is going to give him a future,” Ms Truman said.

“People asked about raising money but we said that we don’t want people’s money, we want people’s time.

"Time is precious and we want people to register as bone marrow donors.”

The campaign #MarrowforMarley has meant that 3,000 people have signed up to become donors with Anthony Nolan, a charity which matches people willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people who need lifesaving transplants, and has also led to a huge increase in blood donations.

“I feel like it’s our job as parents to do everything we possibly can,” Ms Truman said.

“Even if this doesn’t benefit Marley I feel I wouldn’t be doing my job as a mum if I wasn’t doing everything I could.”

On Sunday there is a special event take place in a The Beaufort Centre in St Julians, Newport from 11am to 4pm where people will be tested by taking a mouth swab.

Even if the people tested are not a bone marrow match for Marley they will be put on a national register and could be a match for someone else.

“This isn’t just for us,” Marley’s dad Joe Nicholls said.

“We want to help other people too, not just Marley, because there are so many people going through what we are going through. We are doing it for them too”

Find out more about the Marrow for Marley campaign at facebook.com/marrowformarley.