Janice St Louis felt fit, healthy and ran regularly. Then, a sudden blood cancer diagnosis in January left her reeling. She stays positive about finding a stem cell donor match - but that her ethnicity means she has just a 37% chance.
First Person
I was about to start a new job on 16 January this year, so on the day before I said to my husband ‘I’m going to A&E’, because I wanted to start the new job and feel healthy, and I felt so unwell. I just thought ‘this can’t be real’. I donate blood. I run. I do the odd Tesco cancer research run, I do the Macmillan one. I do all these runs raising money for charity and I’m one of those people now. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked.
The place where I was going to work were willing to hold it for a couple of weeks, but it turned out I was in hospital for six weeks – and sick with it as well – so it would have been unfair, really. I wouldn’t have had the strength to work. This is the first time in my life, since I was 17, that I haven’t been working. I’ve always worked.
I was just as devastated as when they told me I had leukaemia and I cried just the same, let me tell you. They also said there were no matches on any stem cell register around the world, so I kind of lost hope. What am I going to do? My brothers and sisters were supposed to be a 100 per cent match.
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