Primal’s Blog

Work, play and everything in between

Posts Tagged Leukaemia

Check-up time!

Feb 27

Posted by Primal in Bike Related, Leukaemia Treatment, Track Days

I was in for a check-up in Beaumont this Tuesday. Nothing unusual about this of course, except that it was the first time that I had a check-up outside of the Coleman Byrne Unit. My appointment was in Clinic A with my usual consultant Mr. Murphy. I for some reason had expected it to be very different to the comfortable surroundings of the CKB but I was pleasently surprised when I was ushered in to the CKB to have my bloods taken and was greeted by all of the usual suspects.

Bloods

My bloods were taken with the familiar comfort I have become accustomed to at this point. 5 minutes later and it is all over and I have some time to kill while I wait for the results and to speak with Mr. Murphy. So I decide to head to the canteen and grab a bite to eat.

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Treatment completed

Dec 17

Posted by Primal in Bike Related, Leukaemia Treatment

Helllo again everyone. I am happy to say that as of Monday 15th December I have been completely treatment free. For the first time in 2 years I have not had to take a single tablet. This marks the end of my treatment in the Coleman K Byrne Unit in Beaumont. I will now be in the regular out patient system and the regularity of my appointments will be lessened.

What this really means to me is that I will be able to get back to the life I knew, where I had energy for things and could maintain some level of concentration on things. It also means I may be able to get back to playing basketball for the remainder of the season in Cavan, which would be really great.

A quick note to give my best wishes to Chris who was treated in Beaumont while I was there for the APML the same as I had. Chris is not having the best of times of it at the moment and I just want to wish him all the best and a speedy recovery. Good luck mate.
IBF Toy Run for the National Children’s Hospital
On Sunday last we took part in the IBF Toy Run for the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght. All in all about 60 bikes took part in what was a great day out for a very worthy cause.

A big thumbs up to the organisers for a very well run event. Looking forward to next year’s already lads!

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What I’ve been at

Oct 29

Posted by Primal in Bike Related, Bikers4Life, Leukaemia Treatment, Web Design

Hi Guys,

Check presentation

Quick update here for you all. So the weekend before last we did the presentation of the cheque to the good people at Beaumont Hospital. This was really cool to do as of course it is what it is all about. A massive thanks to the 43 bikers who turned up to help us out with the presentation and made it a really special day. Oh and a big thanks to PJ Gallagher for helping us out also.

With a grand total in excess of €13,600 we are delighted with the final ammount. This equates to a grand total over the two events of in excess of €25,000 which just goes to show the incredible generosity that bikers show.

There are millions of photos to see on this one. Far too many to link to individually but you will find them in the same place as always.. http://www.irishbikerforum.com

Also one particular post really caught me. It’s from Dick (Shinwacker) who took part in the run in August. It’s a really heartfelt post and was really appreciated.

The content of the post is below. Though you can see it in it’s original for here

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Over the hump

Feb 19

Posted by Primal in Bike Related, Bikers4Life, Leukaemia Treatment

Right folks, I’m back from my break from telling this story and hopefully over the coming days I will be able to bring things right up to current day and we will continue from there. First things first though, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read the blog over the past few months.

Okay so to continue from where I left off.

I had come out of surgery and been put in plaster and could not really move my legs. Next step was another one of the dreaded Bone Marrow samples. At this stage my medical team had also undergone a change as per the rotation policy of the Hospital. At first I was apprehensive about having a new team looking after me as my trust in the previous team was so high. My fears proved to me completely unfounded as the new team were jusst as amazing as the first.

I was extremely scared of getting another bone marrow sample taken at this stage because I was already in so much pain. I was assured by my new doctor however as she told me that she had preformed the proceedure over 1000 times and that she would not hurt me. I found this difficult to believe at the time as I had been in such pain with my first bone marrow sample. She also explained that unlike a lot of other patients it would not be safe for me to have another general aesthetic. Anyway, despite my fears the procedure was completed entirely painlessly much to my surprise.

This test was to be very important as it would let us know how the treatment was going and if there was to be any good news for us because so far it had all been bad.

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Toughest of times

Jul 13

Posted by Primal in Bikers4Life, Leukaemia Treatment

Okay I have finally got it together to at least start this section of the story, I am just going to keep telling it and see where we get to, this part of the story is very long and parts of it are very fuzzy in my mind so I may need to talk to people who were around at the time for more details. I slept a whole lot of the time at this stage as my body was simply drained.

I was now in my isolated room to try to help keep infections away which seemed very sensible to me at the time, the only problem with it was that it was the height of a very hot summer and the room was absolutely roasting. Needless to say when you are already running a very high temperature this does not help. At times there were fans either side of my bed to try to keep me cool. The difficult part was that because of the way my temperature was spiking so rapidly, I was going into shock every couple of hours. When this happened I could not stop shaking and felt freezing cold, despite dripping in sweat and having a bright red face.

And now on to the part that I was really not looking forward to telling. After some time I noticed that a small blister had appeared on my scrotum. Now I was not overly concerned about this because I am not easily alarmed by things and generally would just let things pan out and sort themselves out.. This was completely naive on my part, and again shows how much I didn’t understand the fact that I had absolutely no immune system.

Anyway after a day or so the small blister had developed into a very large and oozing sore. My entire scrotum had swelled to about 3 times its normal size. Now I was alarmed! So after telling the doctors about the problem I was having they became VERY alarmed and the cogs of battle started to turn.

Within an hour the top dermatology team in the hospital was in for a look at the infection. There was a lot of murmuring and a lot whispering, but all in all nobody seemed to know exactly what it was. The dermatology consultant was one of the most kind people I met in the hospital and she made what was a very embarrassing ordeal for me a lot easier. She was extremely concerned with my comfort and did everything possible to try to make me comfortable, which was difficult given my current condition.

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And on with the treatment

Jun 23

Posted by Primal in Leukaemia Treatment

So with the treatment having started I was already starting to feel the effects and it was not long before I was put into isolation to prevent me from getting infections. At the time I was quite happy about this because I was tired all the time and a private room would be quieter. I also didn’t like the idea of getting an infection. Despite all the best efforts it appeared I already had a chest infection however. I was subject to a daily chest X-Ray to keep an eye on this.

To be honest this would not have been so bad had it not been for the congestion the infection caused which made it very difficult for me to swallow any food. Which did nothing to help the trouble I was already having with food.

One thing that I had not really given much thought to due to the shock of everything that was going on around me was the fact that the chemotherapy treatment would most liekly leave me being sterile. While it was not really on my mind at the time I must say I am very thankful to the doctors who made arrangements for me to deposit sperm in the H.A.R.I clinic in Dublin. Visiting the H.A.R.I clinic was another sureal experience and something that I never imagined I would need to do. None a positive experience as the staff there are excellent and made sure everything was done professionally.

At this stage I was pretty positive I was in the right hands in Beaumont, their attention to detail and level of care was and still to this day is extremely impressive.

It was at this time that something happened which thankfully has healed quite well but still bothers me from time to time. Out of the blue one morning when I woke up, my right hand was completely numb, no feeling what so ever. Becuase I had no sensation in my hand I could do very little with it. I found simple tasks like holding a phone to my ear or drinking a class of water almost impossible. After some scans it was found that I had a blood clot on my brain that was causing the problem. Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing that could be done about this except to wait for my body to break down the clot naturally. This however took close to 8 months to really happen to any degree where I was able to use my hand properly. Every step was taken to try to help me including occupational therapists and physiotherapists giving me different excersises to try to help. Nothing seemed to work however until the clot broke down and I was able to slowly re-train my hand to do normal every day tasks such as writing and using a computer.

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A bit of a shock, but lets roll with this

Jun 22

Posted by Primal in Leukaemia Treatment

So now that I had been diagnosed and the got the initial shock of the fact that I had Leukaemia I was more or less ready to start fighting it. I was keen to get started with the treatment and get on with things. To be honest if I knew what the next few weeks and months were going to be like I wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic.

The Doctors explained to me that I was going to be treated with Chemotherapy and an relatively new drug called Atra which had a fantastic success rate in treating my type of Leukaemia.

At this point I was feeling pretty upbeat and ready for a challenge. I had been pumped full of blood products and was feeling pretty strong. It was actually on my first day on the ward in St. Damiens (on the 6th of the 6th 2006) that they officially diagnosed that it was Acute Myeloid Leukaemia that I had. This was actually good news as this type of Leukaemia is very treatable.

So I was getting to meet some of the other patients on the ward and hearing their stories and experiences which was a very positive thing but also gave me a little insight into the fact that this may not be the walk in the park that I had hoped it would be.

One guy I met there had been through 12 courses of chemotherapy which I now understand is no simple task. To be honest this guy completely reinforced in my mind that I was going to get though this no matter what. When I heard everything he had been through over the last few years I just thought to myself, “well that must be the worst that can possibly happen so I can get through what I have to”.

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How it all started

Jun 20

Posted by Primal in Leukaemia Treatment

Well guys and gals I’d firstly like to introduce myself. My name is Darragh Verschoyle, I am 22 years old at the moment. I have many hobbies which I will get into with you all over time but mostly I enjoy Music, Basketball, Technology, Web Design, Motorcycles and Gaming. I am involved in the running of my family business which is Internet Café’s.

The reason I am writing this blog is to try to give people some sort of an insight into why it is that a charity like Bikers4Life is important. On June 6th 2006 I was diagnosed with Acute Myloid Leukaemia . Now I am a little self concious of writing this blog and I don’t want it to appear to be some kind of attention seeking exercise or a plea for pity. I am quite well at the moment and am not looking for sympathy from anybody. My only goal of writing this blog is to try to help people to understand what it is that a cancer patient goes through and indeed what the nurses and doctors on the wards do to help.

So what got me diagnosed?

Around May 2006 I started to feel a little sick. Now don’t get me wrong, at this point I thought I had a flu, which is exactly the sort of thing I would completely ignore. The only thing which really should have been an alarm bell taking into account what I know now, was that I was spitting up a lot of blood from the back of my throat and my gums were bleeding. I am the sort of person who will only go to a doctor if I am forced, so eventually my Mam made me got to the doctors to get checked out.

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