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Ten years today

Dear All,

It is ten years ago today since I was first diagnosed with CML after volunteering to give blood and find out if I could be a bone marrow donor for a five year old girl who had AML and needed a BM transplant. Fortunately I am still here to tell the tale after being one of the first 60 people in Uk to go on the initial trials for Imatinib/Glivec. Life has been somewhat of a roller coaster since then, but a good one all things considered. Glivec has given me the opportunity to watch my three young daughters grow into beautiful women, now aged 20, 17 and 16. I work full time and have a very normal and sometimes thankfully boring life. I guess I wanted to post to thank this group for being here and for the support you have given me over the past ten years. I also wanted to say to those of you that are newly diagnosed - a CML diagnosis is devastating, but it is not the end of the world and many good things do come after it. CML is and always will be 'the elephant in my room' but it's a much smaller elephant these days. God bless you all today and every day, and thank God for amazing men like Dr Druker xx

Thanks SO much for sharing that uplifting bit of info!

I have only been diagnosed for 7 months and one of the continual intrigues is to know ... who is out there, on Glivec, still surviving and after how MANY years!

It gives us a lot of hope therefore to hear that you are with us 10 years later and it must be wonderful to have seen the girls turn into women. It's amazing how meaninful everything can become. CML has made me live in the realization that the ONLY thing that really matters is.... love, love, LOVE! Accepting and sharing it, at all times, in all places.


Blessings and love to you for a wonderful future!

Beth

hello Lorraine,

thanks for your post. It is good to read... for all of us and especially for the newly diagnosed. It has been an amazing decade for those with CML and for others with the sort of rare cancers that benefit from imatinib and other drugs of the same class - i.e those that target the proteins (tyrosine kinases and other cell signalling pathways) that drive the abnormal cell.

Your post is both poignant and uplifting. And thanks for the kind words about the work we do at CML Support.

Best wishes,

Sandy