My name is Bebe and I am 14 years old. So where do I start? I started to get extremely tired around December time and my skin was really itchy, so my mum took me to my local doctors and they said let’s get some blood tests done. We got my results back and it said I was severely anaemic so they prescribed me some iron supplements to try for 3 months. I took these iron supplements religiously for 2 months but it was just not improving. So my mum and dad took me to the doctors again and he said get more bloods, but the wait to get bloods was 3 months!
We couldn’t wait so we went and hoped for the best to see if a slot was free and luckily there was so we managed to get our bloods done. When the results came back and my Hb was even lower than the first -around 88, the doctors weren’t really sure what was going on. Maybe I wasn’t absorbing iron? But we knew something just wasn’t right. So we ended up getting a private referral and straight away they found a swollen lymph node in my neck and suggested lymphoma as my blood work was crazy! I had some scans done and they sent me straight into A&E with suspected lymphoma. A biopsy and the results from other scans and tests diagnosed me in late March with Stage 4B Classic Hogkins Lymphoma. I have just started cycle 2 of my chemotherapy my protocol.
The hospitals have been great, as have the doctors and nurses but I feel local GPs need to be more aware of the symptoms of lymphoma. I had itchy skin, night sweats and extreme tiredness from January. Classic symptoms which combined with my blood tests showing very high ESR and platelet levels could have been picked up sooner. Maybe I could have been diagnosed at stage 1 or 2 and needed less intensive treatment. I’m therefore doing everything I can to spread awareness of Lymphoma symptoms.
