‘Without leukaemia, I’d never have had my son’
Kris Griffin tells Joe Shute how his rare diagnosis prompted him to freeze his sperm
‘Ihate going through this bit,” Kris Griffin sighs. He is talking about the moment he was sitting in a GP’s office close to his Kidderminster home, where his doctor confirmed a diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). “It was just white noise,” he says. “My ears were ringing and I felt everything draining away.”
At the time, Kris was 32, engaged to his long-term partner, Kelly, and building a successful career in marketing. For a few months, his health had been suffering. He had been losing weight, experiencing night-sweats and his skin was bruising at the slightest of touches.
He had also recently bought himself a silver Ford Puma (he admits that prior to his diagnosis, such shiny accoutrements mattered a lot). Driving the car, he started to notice an extreme pain in his lower back and decided to visit the doctor.
The first time he was sent away with the instruction to take some paracetamol, but the pain persisted. On his second visit, he was asked to provide a blood sample. Later that day, he returned from work to find Kelly grave-faced at the doorstep, telling him the doctor had phoned and asked him to return to the surgery immediately.
“All I could think of asking was: ‘Am I going to die?’” he says, when he was told he had a rare blood cancer that only 750 people are diagnosed with each year. “The doctor just said that she didn’t know.”
He was immediately referred to a specialist and, after what he now describes as “a few days of hell”, where he and Kelly spent hours trawling through alarmist information on the internet, they attended a consultation at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. He was told he was going to be put on a chemotherapy drug called imatinib – but before he started taking it, he should ensure he froze his sperm as it could interfere with his fertility.
“I had never really thought about having children and we hadn’t spoken about it, but we didn’t want the option taken away from us,” Kris says. “There are so many emotions at the time and you’re not in a position to make those kinds of decisions, but I will be forever grateful that it was suggested to us.”
The reason for that gratitude bounds into the living room where we are talking. Luca is now eight, a bright mop-haired ball of energy with an unnerving ability to recite his 12 times table and a dream of being a rock star. “He’s my best mate,” Kris says.
Luca runs me through what he knows of his father’s disease. “I know Dad has a problem with his blood and has to take the same tablets as Roman Reigns,” he says. The US professional wrestler announced last year he was taking time out from the sport due to his diagnosis with CML, but has since wrestled at London’s O2 Arena.
Extraordinary as that sounds, NHS figures suggest around 70 per cent of men who contract leukaemia survive the first five years. For women, that figure increases to 75 per cent. Kris has proved to be one of the lucky ones.
Initially, he was taking two imatinib tablets a day, which left him with crippling side-effects of nausea, bone pain and brain fog. He was moved on to another drug, dasatinib, which immediately started to work for him.
Progress since has been tough, even agonising at times, but progress all the same. The worst bit has been the 15 or so bone marrow biopsies he has endured to ensure the drugs are keeping the disease at bay.
Early on, Kris and Kelly vowed not to let the diagnosis get in the way of their lives. They continued with their wedding plans and, around three years after his diagnosis, decided to unfreeze his sperm and try for the baby. The pair underwent fertility treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and it worked first time.
Kelly insists she never had any doubt about whether Kris would survive to meet his newborn child. “I’ve never thought he’s not going to make it,” she says.
Luca was born in October 2011, at the same hospital where Kris was receiving his CML treatment. “Holding him I just remember feeling peaceful,” he recalls. “Everything that was happening with me suddenly didn’t matter… It was all suddenly about him, but without the leukaemia I’m not sure I would have ever even had him.”
He is proud that he hasn’t spent a single night in hospital since his diagnosis and continues to work full time as a marketing director for an academy trust. He is also a trustee of Leukaemia Care, one of the organisations the Telegraph is backing in this year’s Christmas Charity Appeal. Since his diagnosis, Kris has helped raise thousands of pounds for the charity and spread awareness of its life-saving work.
“I was meant to die when I was 32,” he says. “And I just feel this is a second chance. Having Luca and making the most of those opportunities I would be a bloody fool if I didn’t take them.”
Medically, he says, he is considered on a level of remission, although with a blood cancer like CML, would never consider it cured. He insists, instead, he has accepted the disease as part of him. “It’s like looking in the mirror and seeing you have teeth,” he says. “It’s part of my personality.”