Zoe Ross was a young, successful businesswoman with the world at her feet.

But her world came crashing down when she was diagnosed with leukaemia.

Now, 18 months later, she is fighting to raise awareness of the treatment that saved her life. She tells her story.

I WAS 30 years old and I felt invincible. I had just set up a new recruitment business, Professional Recruitment Partner, on Capricorn Business Park, Blackburn, with my business partner Samantha.

I was driving round in a flash sports car, going out with my friends every night and life was exciting.

Then two months after we opened the business, in May 2006, I started getting very short of breath.

Everybody kept saying You're probably just stressed' but I didn't feel stressed.

I was really buzzing and enjoying myself, so I went to the doctor's thinking maybe I had diabetes or anaemia The doctor did blood tests and said he was sure it was nothing but the next day I got a phone call saying they needed to see me straight away. I knew then there was something wrong.

I don't really remember much after the doctor said 'I'm terribly sorry to inform you that you have leukaemia.' I went into shock. They did a bone marrow test, gave me a sedative and the next thing I knew I was in The Christie Hospital in Manchester.

Everyone said 'You're the last person I thought this would happen to' because I'm so energetic.

I was always up and out, pushing forward, but it just shows leukaemia is indiscriminate.

In Christie's I was in isolation for six weeks initially while they hammered my body with treatment.

This was followed by about a year of chemotherapy, hideous injections in my spine, and steroids.

I was very bloated and all my hair fell out, but surprisingly at the time it didn't bother me because I was so focused on the fact I was very ill and was going to get better.

I never believed I would die. I always knew I'd get better.

Because the type of leukaemia I had was particularly aggressive, I really needed a bone marrow donor.

The other option was that I'd be in hospital my whole life with them trying to keep me alive as long as possible, but that wasn't the kind of future I was interested in.

The ideal situation was for me to have had a sibling donor, but my sister wasn't a match for me.

That really upset her because we're so close and she said she felt like she'd let me down, which obviously wasn't the case at all.

Thankfully, just after Christmas 2006, The Anthony Nolan Trust - the charity which has a register of volunteers willing to donate bone marrow - found a good match for me, a 23-year-old woman.

The transplant itself was a bit of an anti-climax.

They put a line into you and it just looks like a bag of blood going in, but although it looks simple, it's one of the most complicated operations you can have.

They literally strip your immune system down and build you back up again with new cells.

It was a long road to recovery but after four months I started coming back to work, six months earlier than I was supposed to.

I still don't have much of a social life. When I finish work I have to go home and put my feet up. I don't have the will or the energy to go out and I don't drink anymore.

I don't want to give my body any reason to be ill.

My life has had to change a lot. It's like someone picked it up, threw it in the air and it's come back down different.

I don't worry about the little things anymore.

It was exactly one year ago last Wednesday that I received my transplant, which is a big milestone, especially when you consider it's only the minority that survive - about 40 per cent.

I still have some medical problems and I'm a good couple of years from being back to normal. But I was one of the lucky ones.

Not everyone is so lucky. At Christie's there was a girl of a similar age to me in the room next door, called Kim.

I went through everything two weeks before her and so I was able to say Oh, you've got swollen legs, I had that' and we became close friends.

Unfortunately Kim died because she didn't have a donor as well-matched as mine.

Kim is the reason I want to get people realise how important it is for them to join the Anthony Nolan Register.

She wasn't any less positive or strong than me. She had the same type of leukaemia as me but she just wasn't as lucky to have a well-matched donor.

There's a perception that donating bone marrow involves a painful operation but it's not like that any more.

Two years ago I was driving around in my little Audi TT, going out with my friends every night after work.

I thought I was the bee's knees.

Now material things don't interest me. I used to want everything but now, as long as I've got enough money to live, a nice warm home and the people I love around me then I'm happy.

I want to make sure that other people with leukaemia get every possible chance to have a well-matched donor like I did.

Become a donor

Visit www.anthonynolan.org.uk to download a medical questionnaire. You will then give a blood sample and if suitable you can register as a potential bone marrow donor. You may be found to be a match for a patient almost immediately; other people wait many years before being asked to donate - and some never are.