My best pal died from leukaemia.. then I got it
Four years ago my best friend Emily was terminally ill with myeloid leukaemia. It was such a difficult period. So when I began to feel extremely tired a GP suspected it was stress-related.
But my fatigue grew worse. Then I started getting terrible headaches. I was so pale and short of breath I could barely walk five paces.
Two days before Christmas, Mum dragged me to the family doctor, who sent me straight to A&E. At Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey the brilliant staff ran a raft of tests. Sadly, that was the day Emily died.
On Christmas Eve, with my family and a nurse from Macmillan Cancer Support by my hospital bed, I was told I too had leukaemia.
I couldn’t believe the awful coincidence. But there was a difference. I had a different kind to Emily – acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
I went home to spend Christmas Day with my family. We all tried to be brave but when I hugged my twoyear-old niece goodbye at the end of the day I burst into tears.
I was only 24. And you can’t help fear the worst. But I took a deep breath and thought, ‘I have to fight this. I’m not saying goodbye for good.’
I spent New Year’s Eve in London’s Royal Marsden Hospital with my friends at my bedside. Eight months of treatment in and out of the hospital followed, with intensive courses of chemotherapy, a lot of lumbar punctures and up to 40 different tablets a day.
I’m not going to lie – it was horrendous. My hair fell out quickly and, thanks to the steroids I was on, I ballooned from a size 8 to a size 14.
The pain in my legs was unbelievable and my sight began to fail because of steroid-induced diabetes.
The bad days were really difficult and I remember watching television in tears thinking, ‘I don’t want to die.’
By the end of the summer I was living at home in Farnborough, 650 people in the UK will get acute lymphoblastic leukaemia – cancer of the white blood cells – each year. Charlotte is looking forward to Christmas Hampshire, where I work on a help May 5 this year I gave birth to our son desk. I was going in to hospital to Albie. It was one of the happiest days have weekly chemotherapy injections of my life. He’s my light at the end of in my spine, as well as the pills. the tunnel.
Then out of the blue I fell in love. I’d Cancer taught me how strong I been friends with Mike Hewitson, a can be. I become emotional when I beer technician, for years. With my think about why I had a second baggage, I couldn’t believe I found chance at life – to be a family with someone so wonderful to take me on. Mike and Albie.
In March 2016, The anniversary of doctors said I was probably my diagnosis and cured of leukaemia. Emily’s passing could
They told me to go easily be a very hard and live my life. I was time but we try to turn overjoyed. Christmas into a
I’d ruled out having celebration of another children because year together. doctors said the treatment Now I’m so excited could make me for our first Christmas infertile. So a few as a family. The tree is months later I was up and Albie has so shocked when a pregnancy many presents underneath test was positive. Drugs made it. We can’t wait!
Charlotte’s hair fall out In fact I did nine tests Christmas with to make sure, because I didn’t think cancer can still be Christmas. For it would happen. Being ill makes me help contact Macmillan cherish good moments a hundred, Cancer Support. Visit million times more than before. www.macmillan.org.uk or
So I was determined to enjoy every www.cancer.ie. single minute of being pregnant. On VIKKI WHITE Charlotte with Albie and Mike