NHS video shows signs and symptoms of leukaemia
A teacher who noticed large bruises spreading across his body was ordered to go to hospital immediately, but told not to drive as he might die en route.
David Jenkins, from Bedfordshire, was warned that he only had a month or two to live if he didn’t start chemotherapy straight away after a devastating diagnosis of leukaemia.
When David, then 48, first spotted the marks on his stomach he was told they were caused by an ulcer.
At the same time the dad-of-two started to become extremely tired and found his fitness levels had plummeted, with previously easy runs leaving him out of breath.
When the bruises started to spread his doctor thought it was a reaction to tablets and changed his medication.
READ MORE Choosing when to die was ‘one thing mum could control’ after cancer diagnosis
David Jenkins was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer after noticing bruises all over his body (Image: Leukaemia Care/Wales Online)
But this didn’t stop them and eventually he found himself covered in bruises “the size of dinner plates” across his body.
This prompted yet another visit to the doctor – the third in one month – where he took a live-saving blood test.
The test revealed David had acute promyelocytic leukaemia, a rare but fast spreading blood cancer.
Over the phone, his doctor told him to go to hospital immediately, saying: “You are booked into Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. Go there now. Don’t wait. Don’t drive. If you get there straight away, there is a glimmer of hope for you’.”
Speaking to Wales Online, David recalled: “I was 48. The father of a girl starting A-Levels and a girl starting GCSE.
“I still felt I was quite a young man; I enjoyed skiing, Ocean Racing and being a family man, and now I had a glimmer of hope. It turned out I was not supposed to drive because I could have died at any moment.”
Bruising more easily than usual could be a sign of leukaemia (Image: Getty)
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In hospital medics told David he needed to start chemotherapy urgently.
Without the treatment he would only live one to two months, they said.
He went on to have four rounds of gruelling chemotherapy which left him severely ill, and at one stage he struggled even to swallow.
“The first chemo was awful,” he said. “As the drugs were injected, I could feel them burning inside me.
“They had to go in really slowly and the lovely nurse who did it took over an hour to deliver the one injection. This was repeated every day for 10 days.”
At one point David suffered an infection due to the central line used to inject the drugs, and also experienced hair and nail loss.
Fatigue is a common sign of leukaemia (Image: Getty)
He said: “The chemo poisoned me so that my digestive tract was damaged, and I had to have morphine just to allow me to swallow.
“With my immune system destroyed by chemo, I got infections and, unable to fight them, I became really, really ill, my temperature soaring.
“I lay under a sheet soaked in cold water with fans blowing cold air on me to try and keep me cool whilst antibiotics were just run into me continuously.”
By the end of the third round of chemo, David “pleaded” with his wife and doctors to avoid another round but was told it was needed.
“I lay in bed alone, shivering, and in my lucid moments desperately afraid I was going to die without saying goodbye to my wife and kids, but somehow or other got through the night”, he said.
But the treatment was a success and just six months after his diagnosis David was discharged.
He attended weekly check-ups and kept a look out for any new bruising which could be a sign of the disease returning.
That was 18 years ago and since then he has been well.
“Two or three years later my doctor told me not to come back for any more check-ups as I was now definitely cured,” he added.
“I cried again just with the sheer relief. I wouldn’t say I was in remission.
“I would say I am completely cured! It has now been many years since a haematologist told me to go home and stop worrying and that I should consider myself cured.”
Leukaemia accounts for around 10,000 new cancer diagnoses in the UK every year, and almost 5,000 deaths, making it one of the most deadly forms of cancer.
According to the NHS, common symptoms include:
- Skin looking pale or “washed out”
- Tiredness
- Breathlessness
- Losing weight without trying
- Frequent infections
- Having a high temperature, and feeling hot or shivery (fever)
- Night sweats
- Unusual and frequent bleeding, such as bleeding gums or nosebleeds
- Easily bruised skin
- Flat red or purple spots on the skin
- Bone and joint pain
- A feeling of fullness or discomfort in your tummy
- Swollen glands in your neck, armpit or groin that may be sore when you touch them.
If you experience any symptoms of leukaemia you should speak to your GP.