Being told I had leukemia was a shock and I do not mind admitting I burst into tears in the Consultants Office.
For me and my family, the most important thing was to get the treatment needed to fight this cancer of the blood. I hadn't been well for just about eighteen months before the diagnosis, I have had to deal with outstandingly tired and unfit.
During a lovely holiday in Bermuda, I began to feel as while I had got the flu coming on and I had to go to see my doctor when I arrived housing in England because by this moment I couldn't breath especially well. I had very got legionnaires disease - which to put it simply meant that I had pneumonia, the TB I had as a child showed up on my X rays, and I was very ill for 6 weeks. I was taking 8 several antibiotics daily to fight the off.
Interestingly, my husband was fine - no symptoms at all - I realise now that my white blood cells were already being attached by the cancer and the in turn brought my immune technique down.
It was throughout a year ensuing getting legionnaires that I knew something was incorrect because I found I needed to go to bed in the afternoon due to fatigue - I had just to knock myself lightly and I would have a big brown bruise.
After visiting my doctor again, who referred me to the local hospital, at which tests were finished which included blood tests and a sample of my bone marrow was extracted from my hip bone - not a ery pleasant have I own to say,the diagnosis came in the I had hairy cell leukemia, it's called the present when the tumors look such as properties are covered in tiny hairs under the microscope.
The chemotherapy was simple - nearly the chemicals needed to kill off the cancer cells are fed into you intravenously - I firstly had a liquid injected prior to the chemo, this was to stop me from being sick - thank goodness it worked. I was also lucky so my hair did not come out in clumps - I had critical dandruff but the present was all.
I had to own 5 two hour chemo sessions Monday to Friday and I felt particularly weak by the last session, I was issued some needles to inject personally with, these contained a solution described by the doctor as Fertiliser for White Cells. I did the injections and found I was getting fairly a lot of discomfort in the hip and thigh bones - this was lead to by the injections as the solution was stimulating my bone marrow and aiding the clean new white cells to grow (sorry I cannot explain it in more medical terminology) and so was how caused the discomfort. It was a small price to pay to get my blood clean again.
I have been very lucky, my sort of leukemia is treatable and as extensively as infections are avoided after and during the chemo, a full recovery once 6 months is perfectly achievable.
I have been in remission now for three years, visit my consultant each six cycles and he says my blood is particularly healthy, so I thank god for that and of channel the medical profession who are just fantastic.
I am now officially retired as I am aged 62 years but I experience just bought a franchise selling web sites, please feel free to look http://lymphoma0.blogspot.com/
