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On 13th May 2008, my son Jamie was a normal 24 year old, married father of Lily and Grace

Between the 5th and the 9th May, Jamie completed 78 miles on the cross trainer in the gym and was extremely fit and well.

After feeling tired over the weekend of 10th & 11th May, which was written off as fatigue, bruises began to appear. On Wednesday 14th May, his bruising became worse and blood spots began to appear in his mouth.

After speaking with the NHS help line, he decided to go to Basildon hospital at around 6am where he was tested and found out that he has a bleed in his head and in fact had Leukaemia.

Jamie was transferred to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London after 6 hours of arriving at Basildon and diagnosed with an acute type known as Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia, known as APL (a strand of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia - AML).  Jamie actually had AML and not APL.

During the early evening of Thursday 15th May, Jamie’s eye sight began to deteriorate and on Friday 16th May he was blind. Further scans were taken of his brain and this identified that the bleed was still there, and a clot had also appeared.

An additional scan was scheduled for Saturday morning, and whilst waiting for this during the night Jamie suffered with a stroke which paralysed the left side of his body, affecting his speech and his mind. At this stage, he was heavily sedated and moved into intensive care to address the brain damage, and continue to treat the Leukaemia with chemotherapy.

We, as a family, had been informed that the situation was bleak and doctors suggested that they “thought” that Jamie would not recover.

On Thursday 5th June (23 days after diagnosis) - In the early hours of the morning the doctors told us Jamie had Cheyne Stokes  breathing which meant that death was imminent.  He caught MRSA and despite them thinking he had C-Dif, he didn't.  His blood continued to thin throughout the morning but despite the doctors thinking they'd be telling us the worst news around 2am, Jamie was still fighting.  At 5pm we were told that they had to up Jamie's oxygen to 100% meaning he was no longer breathing by himself and his blood pressure dropped even further (90/29). The doctors told us that they were going to give Jamie 2 more units of blood but if that didn't help things they would give him no more blood.

At 5:32pm, in a room with Nik, Bernie, Wes, Hayley and me, Jamie passed away, peacefully, out of suffering and pain, and with a smile on his face.

Speaking with Jamie on Thursday 15th May between bone marrow tests and chemotherapy he has asked his brother Wes for just one thing – To raise awareness of Leukaemia.

Considering ourselves as a relatively intelligent people, we were shocked with how little we actually knew about this. Please take some time out yourselves to take a look at these:

http://www.leukemia.org

or

http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Cancertype/Leukaemiaacutemyeloid

Irrespective of Jamie’s experience with Leukaemia, we (as a family) had decided to switch our attention to raising awareness of Leukaemia as per Jamie’s request. We are not looking for sympathy or comments but just want people to be aware. This disease can affect anyone.

Jamie himself had volunteered to be part of two case studies, irrespective of the outcome, of which he continued until death.

Jamie's campaign has been running for six years now and with your continued help, we can continue to raise awareness and also funds to help with Leukaemia research and hopefully one day either find out why Leukaemia happens in the first place, or maybe even a cure?