Mum thought she had a bug before being told she had leukaemia
Aand my fiancé Dave said ‘I’m not happy we’re going back to the doctors.’ So he took me back. “I fell asleep in the doctor’s room and I’m not a sick person. It was a circus really. No one knew what was going on. They were taking bloods asking if I had been in contact with wild animals, if I had been to Africa, then they said it might be hepatitis.”
From here Bex was told she would need to go to the hospital. It was here that a doctor told her that they were 95 per cent sure she had leukaemia.
Bex said: “I was so shocked; all I could say was ‘pardon’? He said it again and asked if I had any questions. I was so upset, I couldn’t speak. My world imploded.
“I was told in hospital and had nobody around me, no family present nothing. I thought they were talking about someone else, my world imploded. I straight away sent a text to my then fiancé and asked him to come back to the hospital because up to that point we had no idea what it was.
“They had thought I had hepatitis and then this got dropped onto me and I went into a state of disbelief and from then it was a car crash. I remember being rushed to Liverpool hospital and still being in disbelief - I still thought someone was going to come up to me and say it wasn’t right.
“All I could think about was my poor children, they have gone from sitting on the stairs saying mum will be home to coming to the hospital. I remember asking if I was going to lose my hair and the doctor looked at me and said we are going to fight this.”
From finding out she had leukaemia Bex battled through two rounds of chemotherapy and 15 bone marrow biopsies.
She was put on a drug trial and immediately started on her first round of FLAG-Ida - which her oncologist said was a chemo known as ‘The Bomb’. Her first round went by OK despite not being able to eat and losing her hair.
It was the second round of chemotherapy that made her ‘want to die’ due to the horrific pain she suffered.
She was sick, lost a lot of weight, had heart palpitations and severe fatigue. But it was her last bone marrow biopsy which was the most traumatic.
Bex said: “My son had come with me to my last bone marrow - just out of curiosity - and he said to me ‘mum that’s barbaric’.
“The pain I experienced in that last bone marrow was off the scale and it caused me to have a brain haemorrhage.
“I was losing consciousness. I spent eight days in the hospital after it and thankfully my body recovered. People always say to me ‘OMG you survived.’
“It was horrendous, but the care I got was phenomenal. I was sent home from the hospital with sepsis and that’s what nearly killed me.
“The hospital held their hands up and apologised for their mistake and now they have special nurses that check people for infection before sending them home.
“I actually wanted to die - at that point I could not take the pain.
“The only thing that spurred me on was the thought of my children and Dave, you just look for that core strength. If Dave hadn’t taken me to the hospital I wouldn’t be here today.
“They [the doctors] said they didn’t know how I didn’t have a heart attack. It’s been a journey.”
Remission for Bex was finally confirmed in April 2018.
She said: “Life now is good.
“Home life is so much better for my children too - what they must have gone through the trauma they experienced, I can’t imagine. They are strong kids. We are very close.
“Although life now is a lot better, I do still have pain but fortunately I was a very active person at the time and that gave me good stead to fight it.”
Bex has recalled how milestones throughout her battle helped her carry on fighting the disease - in the August she celebrated her 50th birthday and in May 2019, she and Dave married.
She said: “Milestones were my daughter’s 18th and taking my son to Old
Trafford, it was huge when I finally got to take him to the game.
“Obviously, my wedding day was a huge milestone too because it was postponed because of my leukaemia.”
To mark her recovery and five years since her diagnosis, Bex had a tattoo on her wrist of the three little birds from the song her son Trystan had sent to her right at the beginning.
The morning after her diagnosis, her son Trystan, now 18, sent her the song Three Little Birds by Bob Marley.
She said: “It was his way of reassuring me ‘every little thing is gonna be alright’. It became a theme throughout everything that was to come”
She added: “My friends have been such a good support system throughout it all to support me and my kids. I lost my mum in January too so it’s been a tough time.”
Leukaemia UK has now announced it is funding a new project which could lead to treatments with fewer side effects for patients like Bex in the future.
Bex said she is hopeful that this new research will mean others don’t have to go through the difficulties she and her family did because of such aggressive treatment.
‘I actually wanted to die - at that point I could not take the pain’
Bex Despard