You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone - that was the message from Joni Mitchell and her Big Yellow Taxi all those years ago.

It’s as true today as it was then, and one of the things most of us take for granted is our health.

Apart from the raging hypochondriacs whose life may well revolve around numerous ailments, real or imaginary, we tend not to think much about the amazing machine that is our bodies, unless it is to ponder and puzzle over the expanding waistline and, for the males, the receding hairline.

It is only when illness strikes that we realise how delicate is the balance between health and sickness and life and death.

And for 19-year-old Anthony Cutts his rare and serious illness was a bolt from the blue.

Eight months after his rare blood disorder, Aplastic anaemia, was diagnosed he is still in hospital with his life on hold.

The condition has shut down his immune system and only a bone marrow transplant can offer a solution.

In the meantime he needs regular blood transfusions and family and friends with the right blood type are being urged to donate to maintain a supply for him.

Blood donors and organ donors are a vital part of modern medicine, saving lives every day.

But lives are also being lost every day as patients wait for transfusions, and organs to be transplanted.

The possiblity of parts of me giving someone else an extended and meaningful life once I’ve expired is something that I find uplifting.

Anthony’s parents can only approach family and friends to ask them to donate blood, but this might be an opportune moment for anyone, especially those of specific blood groups, to consider becoming a donor.

Joe Scicluna, Editor.