Cancer (young people)

I was fourteen when I took Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, and I'm seventeen and it's, I've just finished my treatment in May.

Ok, tell me about your symptoms when you were fourteen?

I was feeling sick, I had a lot, a lot of nose bleeds, lasted for ages. Then I was dizzy and I was too tired and that was it.

For how long did that go before you seek medical assistance?

Oh, I was ill in November, then so I went to the doctors, he says I've got just inflammation. But they never says even where so I went right. So they gave me anti inflamatories it never worked, then. I went back again they just gave me more, still didn't work. I was ill over Christmas and New Year so I went back in January the 8th. And he says, 'Right, we'll take a blood test.' 'Cos I was dizzy, I had to sit down at the top of the hill and then I went in, and I was shaking and a man that knew me says, 'are you alright?' and that, he sat me down. Then the doctor took me, took me for a blood test. Then mum came in, and she helped me down the road. My, my auntie seen us and she had to carry me home, I couldn't walk. And the doctor says, 'We'll get the results within the week.' And mum says, 'No, you're getting them, like, today.' So she phoned, she phoned and says, 'Oh you're getting them today.' Then the doctor came in at half past five that night and says I've to go right over to the hospital. He never said what was wrong.

And also I've not had the problem of going to a GP and trying to explain my symptoms, I mean I've been, you know, apparently if I had symptoms it would be headaches and you know, migraines and problems, things like that, and to get to the diagnosis from that, I, I can imagine it's an absolutely nightmare. Some of them, you know, have had, had to go through some real problems, my friends that have been diagnosed, trying to get the doctors to listen to them, to take, you know, because obviously it's the last thing people expect a young person to have, which is very well but I think it's perhaps an idea that they err on the, on the side of caution and start with the worst possible scenario and work down instead of working up to it because a lot of the friends you know, that have had it have either got to such a state where they're very, very poorly or some of them, it's been left too late and there's not a lot people can do for them. Which is really sad. 

So I've been lucky in that respect, the fact that I haven't had any problems and had, you know, I've sort of skipped a whole range of, you know, problems that I might have encountered.