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Back in November 2017 I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, this came out of the blue and was a complete shock for me and my family. My life at that time was progressing nicely, happily married, two young girls, good job and a brilliant group of friends.

It all started in October 2017, I had been feeling tired for a few weeks and then suffered with headaches which progressively got worse over two weeks. At the same time I started with what felt like an abscess, 5 days after seeing the GP the headaches had gone but the abscess had got worse. Through routine tests at A&E they identified there was a problem with my blood and 10 hours later my Leukaemia was diagnosed, this was at 11am on 9th November 2017 and by 1pm I was in the Christie Hospital....and what an amazing hospital it is.

It took a long time to take in the news and all the information about my Leukaemia, what the treatment involved and the associated risks. The hardest thing was that once treatment started I would be confined to my room for 5 weeks. Due to the age of my girls who are 3 & 1, I wasn’t allowed any physical contact because of the risk of infection! It was heart breaking. Those 5 weeks were the hardest 5 weeks of my life and I missed so much, like Georgia taking her first steps and Francesca’s first nativity play. I had 10 days at home before Christmas so I could spend Christmas with my family before being admitted again on 27th December for 10 days

I have now had a further 3 rounds of Chemo which have all required being admitted to the Christie for 6 - 10 days at a time but I am pleased to say as of last week my treatment has now finished and I am in remission. During my treatment I elected to enter into two clinical trials, the main reason for this has been to provide more information and results to the cancer research team so that treatments can be improved and this cancer can be eliminated in the future.

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer that starts from within bone marrow. AML is rare and only effects around 3,100 people in the UK each year. It can occur in adults or children but most often it is diagnosed in people over the age of 65 years old. Acute means that the leukaemia develops quickly. If it isn’t treated the leukaemia would cause death within a few weeks or months. But treatments work very well for most people with AML.

Everyone at the Christie have been amazing!! We are so lucky to have these facilities within the North West, they have saved my life. AML has been in the media recently due to some tragic cases where unfortunately people haven’t survived but I want to get a positive message out there that it is treatable and a lot of research is being carried out to try and eradicate this disease. There are a number of research centres across the UK and the Christie is one of them, it is for this reason I feel passionately about fundraising for the haematology and transplant research fund at The Christie.

We are arranging at charity dinner which will be held on the 9th November 2018 at The Lowry Hotel, Manchester. This is partly a celebration but more importantly it is about raising as much money and publicity as possible for the Christie hospital. Tickets have now sold out for the event and we are expecting over 280 people there on the night. If anyone can help support our cause with a donation to this page we would be eternally grateful.

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