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jiffie 3 years, 3 months ago.
Hi, I was diagnosed with Myeloma around 4 weeks ago, no thanks to my GP surgery. I initially went to my GP with severe chest and back pain, she prescribed Codamol for the pain and noticed my BP was high. I was already on BP medication so she doubled the dose, I had to return a week later for bloods because of the medication change. I never heard anything for 3 weeks then I got a call from the GP receptionist to tell me that the doctor wanted to see me re my bloods but it wasn’t urgent and booked an appointment for me a week later. When I saw a different doctor he apologised for the bad care I had been given and told me that my sodium levels were so low that they were at a critical level and I should have been seen as soon as the blood results had come in. He referred me straight into hospital and then things started to get much more professional.
By the end of the day they had done in depth blood analysis, the following day I had a full MRI of my spine, chest x-ray and CT scan of my neck by lunchtime. That afternoon they gave me the bad news. I have 3 compressed vertebrae, further x-rays show damage to the bone in my left upper arm, I’ve also had a marrow extract. I’ve since had 2 x 4 day bursts of steroids, a 10 hour saline drip to thin the blood and my chemo starts next week on Tuesday.
I have nothing but praise for the staff at both hospitals I have been attending, very quick to diagnose, totally informative all the way and quick to get me onto a treatment schedule. The strange thing is my BP has dropped down to “normal” levels despite having stopped taking the BP medication, which makes me think that this has been mis-diagnosed from the start.
Anyway, I’m 65 and in reasonable good health otherwise, the Consultant says my prognosis is good but I’ll cross my fingers, stay as positive as I can and hope that I respond well to the treatments. Both my wife and I are retired so we can concentrate on dealing with this without any other distractions. Obviously it came as a shock to us both, but after a few weeks we have accepted the situation and now it’s really just a case of getting on with it. This site and reading others stories has helped to alleviate a lot of the fears I had and I feel a lot more positive about the future than I did a few weeks ago.
jiffie. Reason: Tidy up
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