I never really felt like I ‘got over’ the last breast cancer (or the first one for that matter). I was constantly beyond tired, to the point of fatigue and sick of hearing people say ‘ohh you’ve been through so much’….yeah, yeah. I knew something wasn’t right. About a year ago I was wrapping up work on the Pink Polar Expedition (of which I’ll be forever proud of my mate Dr Geoff Wislon and my involvement – plenty on that elsewhere), but as well as burning the candle at both ends, I noticed I was coming up in these ugly bruises all over my torso and legs. They were dark and appearing spontaneously – that is not impact bruises. They were almost uniform at times and quite frankly looked like someone had come at me with a hammer.
After a couple of mentions to my GP and Oncologist, more in depth testing – the only thing that showed as being slightly abnormal was my MCV – or Mean Cell Volume. Gut feel was screaming ‘something’s up Kate – keep pushing!!’….So while I asked for a referral to a Haematologist, no-one was quite expecting what came next.
I must admit to having a rather awkward first consultation with this Dr. In his eyes – I was a recovering BC patient, with a marginal increase in the size of my red blood cells ‘almost not worth mentioning’. I had been told by my Oncologist and had read about the chance that some of the BC treatment I’d had could lead to Leukaemia. This Dr almost flinched at the mention of the word and told me I was getting ahead of myself. He also suggested it could be something called Myelo Dysplastic Syndrome (a ‘pre-leukaemia’), when I asked for some reading material he reluctantly handed it over. The only definitive way to diagnose was to do a Bone Marrow Biopsy – which we almost argued about. To me – it’s just another test. To him – it was putting a hole in my back and skeleton and perhaps performing an unnecessary procedure. He was going on 5 weeks holiday and could keep an eye on me with blood tests and maybe do it when he got back. THEN he dropped the ‘if it was my wife, would I be doing this? No…..absolutely not. It’s such a small change and you’re otherwise well’. But I KNEW I wasn’t. So I put on my imaginary boxing gloves, leaned forward and said ‘with respect Dr, I would hope your wife is not 36 years old with the cancer history I have. Please book the test!’
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