Post date: 09-May-2012 10:40:04
In March (about two months before this all started) I had a bad cold but thought nothing more about it. As ever the cough just would not go so I reluctantly said if I still had it after two months I would go to the doctors (note from Iz: he only agreed to this after being nagged...!).
At the beginning of April we went on a cruise and I was finding it very tiring to get up and down the stairs, something which had been fine the year before. It was that point I started to think something was not right. When we got home I went back to work as normal, but the 10 minute walk to the car got more difficult each day. After a couple of weeks I had to stop to get rest twice... that really was not me.
I went off to the GP surgery (had to register first), the doctor was not sure what was wrong but thought I looked a bit pale. I was sent for an urgent blood test. That was at lunch time on Thursday the 3rd of May, by 5pm the GP was trying to get hold of me urgently. I had gone home and gone to bed so they had left a message with Isabel. We went round and were told that all my blood counts had dropped off the scale.
We went round to Milton Keynes General Hospital, I was admitted to the CDU (Clinical Diagnosis Unit) about 8pm. They then started on a round of tests and started to give me a blood transfusion.
The tests continued on Friday the fourth with CT scan, bone marrow and more blood. The preliminary results came back that there was no doubt that it was Leukaemia - they just need to do more tests to see what type. I was moved to my own room on ward 22, to avoid the risk of infection due to my poor immune system.
By Saturday we knew it was AML and I would need an aggressive course of chemotherapy to get through this. Isabel and I started to make plans of how we would make it through the treatment.
Isabel has been fantastic contacting people to let them know - it's not very easy think to tell people. She has been sorting out all the things I need for my stay here. Most importantly she has been coming in and keeping me cheerful.