Adrenaline

I was 21 and I was planning a wedding, buying a house and had a job interview for the job of my dreams on my 22nd birthday.  You see I was being made redundant and had to find a new job by August.  Especially with the new mortgage now.  It was April.  I worked for CML and my new job was a done deal.  All I needed was a medical.  And with that, just like that....my life was turned upside down and I was diagnosed with CML, ha ha, I know the irony.  My hematologist had a laugh at that too.  I had Chronic Myeloid Leukeamia, which was normally reserved for 70 year old men.  Quite rare for a young adult to get, so how would they treat it?  I underwent two separate trials until finally it was decided my best chance of survival (all be it only 50% chance), would be a MUD BMT (matched unrelated bone marrow transplant), now known as VUD Allograt (volunteer unrelated donor).  I was told 21 years ago the chance of finding a match was 1 in 20,000 (and that is everyone was on the bone marrow donor registry).  Scary odds. So being the risk taker I am I said "go for it".  They found a match and that was my first miracle in this journey.  The second miracle was, it worked - new blood type, two different DNA profiles and the miracle of medicine was reborn inside me.  The third miracle is my son.  25 years on, I now face a new challenge.  Breast Cancer.  Certainly not the first person to have cancer, to have invasive ductile cancer, hormone receptive and HER2 +, or to even have a dual diagnosis.  But this is not another Webiste about a cancer survivor, this is just my excuse to finally publicly write.  Along the way I  am hoping I can share some insights I have learnt over the years and at the same time, give you a good belly laugh. View all posts by Debra Mesecke