Ambrose tell his Non Hodgkin Lymphoma & BMT Story

Diagnosis

In July 1983 I was a 26 year old buyer for a retail company. I epitomised the story of someone without a care in the world. If only I'd realised it. I was married with a young son. After a few moves and promotions, I had moved from being a trainee manager in a store, to being in the spotlight at head office, and travelling the world buying stock. (It's not all it's cracked up to be).

It was on one of these trips that my illness first manifested itself. I was in Taiwan for part of my trip, when I had a bad night in my hotel. In hindsight, I'd probably had a bad few weeks, but kept going, not noticing anything specific wrong. On this night I couldn't sleep. I tossed, sweated and had severe pain in my back, which I couldn't alleviate, no matter which way I turned. I survived through the night until a 'respectable hour' and at 6 am, I rang the hotel reception to get a doctor. Many years before I had pneumonia with a touch of pleurisy. The symptoms were the same, so I wasn't too concerned. When the doctor arrived he diagnosed 'neuralgia' - back pain and prescribed two tablets. I was picked up from the hotel by our companies agent, who did nothing to reassure me by saying not to take the tablets, as he was probably a quack!

I continued the next week of my trip, and returned home, feeling not much better. After a couple of days I went to my local doctor. I had now got this flu/pneumonia for 3-4 weeks and it was not going away. He listened to my chest, took my pulse, temperature etc. All the usual things. Nothing obvious. But thankfully he decided on a second opinion. Within a few days I was having a biopsy, the results of which quickly had me in St. James. I was told I had Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, which meant nothing to me. No one mentioned cancer, and I didn't know it was. It was a long time before I associated the two together. My concern was that if I was coming in next week for treatment, how many days would I be off work?