Blood

I haven't blogged for a while - time for a bit of an explanation.

I have umm'ed and ahh'ed about whether to use Blognonymous for this post, but I have decided that as I blog about my life, my kids, I would blog about this as this is now a part of my life...well..forever.

 I went for a routine blood test as part of a free health assessment thing that work provide. My blood, specifically my white blood cells are not right. There are too many of them. 

Now an interlude...The NHS are AMAZING. When it is something serious, they work so quickly and efficiently. So impressed. A massive shout out to the doctors and nurses of ward 19 at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham

So, for the last couple of weeks I have had lots of tests, including, a bone marrow biopsy (that was Not Funny).

Turns out I have Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) - which sounds bad, well yes, it is bad. But if you are going to have a Leukaemia this is the one to have.

I should be able to manage it with tablets and although it is unlikely I will ever be cured my prognosis is good. 

Isn't it strange how much information you can absorb when you need to. I suddenly have an understanding of chromosomes, marrow and stem cells, that I never had before. I still can't pronounce the medicine they plan to put me on, but hey ho.

The good news is that I can't give this to my kids, it's not genetic, it's just one of those things? (does that mean I could have kept smoking?)

So,  I have spent a lot of time here - and I will encourage you to give - I am going on a clinical trial which will hopefully help future patients, and purely from a selfish perspective may help me!

So all this puts things in perspective, and I was feeling all glum and self pitying, and then I hear about a couple who lost their seven month old baby last week, after only having her diagnosed with a growth earlier in the week. At least I have had 42 years. My thoughts are with her family. 

As they say, there is always someone worse off than you.