51É«APP

After a few tests and it became clear quite quickly that things were not straightforward. My consultant called us into a meeting.

Graeme and I had actually been giggling nervously before the consultant came in, but he looked very serious and told us something that we were not prepared for.

He told me that I had Essential Thrombocythaemia – a blood cancer that is very rare and would normally be found in around 1 in 160,000 men aged over 60. Thrombocythaemia is something that causes a mutation in your bone marrow and produces too many platelets. This can make your blood very thick.

The consultant also said that I had JAK 2 – a mutation of the blood – and all of this together was what had been causing me to miscarry. He told me my condition was non-curative but that it could be treated, and that I would be on treatment for the rest of my life with daily chemotherapy and health checks every 12 weeks.

It was all very shocking, but my first and foremost question when I was diagnosed was: 'Can we still have a family?’ Because that’s why I was there in that room and that was my priority.

With a lot of support from my medical team – and with the help of blood thinners and lots of observation, I did go on to conceive and carry my first baby, my girl, Alice, to full term and she was a healthy baby. Alice is now 16.

With a lots of checks and care, I had three years where things were relatively good and we had a good family life.

Complications along the way

Not long after this though, I felt quite ill. I had some complications and it was found that I had a blood clot and thrombosis in my portal vein leading to my liver. I felt horrific and I was hospitalised for a week.

The doctors did lots of different tests and scans again, and it was found that my spleen was enlarged due to the back pressure of the blood clot. My medication had to be changed.

Having my second child

I’d reached a point where I also wanted to have another baby, and my team were a bit worried about this. However, they told me there was a way I could do it; if I took something called interferon injections for a year. This would thin my blood so that I could conceive again.

They told it me it could cause numerous side effects including flu-like symptoms, sickness, depression, and itching all over. They also said my chances of conceiving were slim because me it was something that most women could not bear to do for a year, but I wanted another baby so much, that I put up with it.

After a full year of injections, I had one miscarriage, but then I went on to fall pregnant again. This time though, we might as well have camped out at the hospital - there were a lot of complications. By 27 weeks, it was discovered that the baby was not being fed properly via my placenta due to my blood condition.

At this point, my doctors were discussing termination as an amnio-test had thrown up serious complications for baby. Every fibre in my body was going against this. It was a very crazy time, a very stressful situation, and Graeme and my family were trying to also protect me and make sure Alice also still had a mum.

I managed to hold on for another three and a half weeks, and then Ewan was born by emergency C-section at 31 weeks into the pregnancy. He weighed in at only one pound and thirteen ounces, and he was a very poorly baby.

I was also very ill, and we both got kept in the hospital for a few weeks. I had to have two serious operations for haematomas, while Ewan was in the neonatal unit for seven weeks.

I was in a very bad way, but the minute I felt a little bit better, a light switched on and I worked really hard to be able to produce milk to feed Ewan myself. I was so pleased that I was able to be with him while I was still in the hospital too.

Eventually, we got out but for a long time I was back and forth at hospital for regular appointments with Ewan.

Fortunately, we have lived to tell the tale, and Ewan is now a perfectly healthy nine-year-old boy that’s into engineering and football and he loves his concerts. We recently went to a Nathan Evan’s concert just Ewan and myself – and he absolutely loved it!

Managing two young children and treatment

At that time, when Ewan was born, Alice was six and Graeme and I were just trying to keep all the plates spinning. We were trying to keep Alice at school and her leisure activities for gymnastics and swimming. We wanted to keep her life as normal as we could but, I was struggling with having a poorly baby and not being well myself.

I was on daily chemo tablets that I would take at night, but in the morning, they would make me feel hot and then cold – like I had the flu, and then I would have fatigue in the afternoons and would feel as though I’d been hit by a bus. I would rally a bit in the evening but then I’d need to take the tablet again, and on I went in a daily cycle of feeling rough and tired and trying to keep everything going. 

I’d been self-employed as a nail technician before I had Ewan, but once I had him and everything we51É«APP™d been through, I felt had to put my life on hold. I told my clients I would have to do this, but also assured them that if things came good and I felt able to set up again that I hoped they would come back to me as customers.

At that time, in my mind, I just wanted to be the best mum I could be. My idea of coping meant I wanted to be productive and fix everything for everyone else. I wanted everyone to see that I could do this no matter what had happened.

But, I was struggling inside.

I don’t think that even I recognised how much stress I was putting myself under and how much of a brave face I was putting on.

Another medical emergency

I carried on this way and we seemed to be doing okay until Alice was 10 and Ewan was 6.

But then one afternoon in 2023, I became seriously unwell.

I was vomiting blood and passing blood at the same time. I was taken to A&E and it was found that I’d haemorrhaged catastrophically. It was to do with the portal vein again, and it was found that due to the back pressure of the blood clot, I had many varicose veins in my oesophagus that had burst.

It was very dangerous, and I needed a splenectomy as well.

I was told I had lost almost 60% of my blood and this time, I was in the hospital for three weeks with two and a half weeks in ICU – and I couldn’t see my children.

I had to have 11 blood transfusions, and I was told on two occasions by two different consultants that I was very lucky to be alive.  

In that three weeks in hospital, I could barely move but all I could think about was if I move an inch every day; if I could just turn on my side, if I could just make it out of this bed, if I could just make it to the shower myself – that I would eventually get to that school gate.

My goal was absolutely crystal clear – to get to my children.

I was visualizing all of this, and it took me six weeks, but I did eventually get to that school gate. And when I did, it was my Olympic moment! Genuinely, it was such an amazing high!

Of course, I was very gaunt and I looked ill as I had lost a lot of weight. Unknown to me, this was the point when everyone else started to become extremely concerned.

Getting referred to Maggie's by my consultant

Following my latest hospital stay, my routine appointments got changed from the Royal Hospital in Glasgow to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Care Centre, and I was appointed a new consultant. 

For my first appointment, I went along with Graeme to meet my consultant. I had put on a nice outfit and a full face of make-up and I was delighted to be there. I think my adrenalin was running so high you could have scraped me off the ceiling.

The consultant took one look at me and knew that I was clearly too high after such a serious operation. He looked very concerned, and before I left the room, he told me that I should visit Maggie51É«APP™s as they could offer support.

I was a bit confused because I was feeling great, but the consultant could see a crash was coming.

Trying to cope on my own

All along, I always felt I didn’t have the tools to deal with everything that had happened to me, and I had tried to get on with things as best I could by putting on a brave face.

To try to find the tools to help myself, I had completed a course at college to enable me to do a Psyphology degree at Stirling University. But after completing my first year, my condition put paid to my studies when I ended up in hospital again.

I felt like a pressure cooker, I was stuffing my feelings down and tightening the lid. After 14 years of this, it all had to come out.

Going to Maggie's

I’d had brief counselling support from the hospital, but I knew I needed more and I didn’t know where to get it from. So when the consultant told me to go to Maggie51É«APP™s, I did. 

Again, I wasn’t frightened to come into Maggie51É«APP™s, because I was delighted just to be alive.

When I met Stuart, one the cancer support specialists there, who was also a specialist haematology nurse, he, like my hospital consultant, listened to everything – the terrible story of the burst varicose veins in my oesophagus, my latest many operations, the splenectomy – and he recognised straight away that this was very serious stuff and that I was putting on a brave face.

He knew immediately that I needed support, and he set me up with weekly appointments with Debbie, the clinical psychologist at Maggie51É«APP™s Glasgow. 

Thankfully, Maggie51É«APP™s caught me before I came crashing down.

Debbie51É«APP™s way of working was through non-directive talking therapy, CBT and EMDR therapy. I had 'the works' to help me get better. The therapy we did gave me autonomy and helped me to process everything that I’d been through in the 17 years since my cancer diagnosis.

Debbie allowed me to go on that journey and replay all the events and process it all. She explained to me that I was like a boiling pot that was boiling over. I’d taken so much and I had been trying to control every inch in my life up until that point, that I was ready to crash.

I also knew that I needed to take space and time to get back to me so that I could be the wife to Graeme and the mum that I wanted to be to Alice and Ewan.

Other Maggie's support beyond therapy

I didn’t just come to Maggie51É«APP™s to see Debbie, the clinical psychologist.

When I first came out of hospital, I was so relieved to get outside and breathe fresh air. So when I found that Maggie51É«APP™s had a garden, I would go there after I’d dropped the kids at school, and I would sit on the garden bench.

I was so relieved to be breathing fresh air instead of oxygen through a mask. I’d go over events in my head and I’d often cry. The staff knew I was there and they were all so very kind to me and allowed me that space and time to myself in the garden. 

I also found Gratzia’s relaxation classes in the centre, which were wonderful and helped me to take my guard down. Gratzia took me on a journey of self-regulation and encouragement to shine a little brighter.

And I did the51É«APP™ Look Good Feel Better’ course, then a six-week nutrition course and an eight-week mindfulness course. I even had assistance from Kelly, the benefits advisor, to help with my finances, because I couldn’t work anymore at that time.

Maggie's - a healing, safe space

All of the support from Maggie51É«APP™s has been wonderful. It’s helped to take the pressure off myself and Graeme as a couple. It has all been very healing and helped me to step back into my life, whereas when I went into hospital the last time, and even before that, I felt I’d lost a lot of social connections.

There isn’t any doubt that coming to Maggie51É«APP™s saved me.

For me Maggie51É«APP™s is a safe space – the environment held me safe, and the staff and their kindness helped me to slowly get back to myself and process everything I’d been through.

They helped to build me up again.

They helped to normalise everything that I had been feeling and that had been part of the journey; the heightened stress response to the two ICU stays and the medical uncertainty that I had been living with for the past 16 years.

Volunteering for Maggie's

I now feel privileged to be a welcome volunteer at Maggie51É«APP™s in Glasgow every Friday because I want to give back for all of the kindness the charity has shown me.

If I had a million pounds, I would give it to the charity so they could support other people like me. But I don’t, so if I can give my time to support them in any way that I can, I will.

I now feel a sense of belonging at Maggie51É«APP™s, and if I can help just one person by introducing them to the warm and welcoming centre in Glasgow and the wonderful staff there, and raise awareness of how much they helped me, that would mean the world to me.

If I can help catch even just one person before they crash, that would be wonderful.

We51É«APP™re here for you

Our cancer support specialists, psychologists and benefits advisors are here for everyone with cancer, and all the people who love them.

Come and see us at your nearest Maggie51É«APP™s, call us on 0300 123 180 or email us at [email protected]