So what side effects did your treatment give you?

None. I’m quite, amazingly, I have to say I noticed none at all. I mean you were warned you might have nausea or whatever but I never experienced that, which is why to me I see it as a miracle drug, in my case, I can’t say obviously for everybody. But it really was, I simply couldn’t believe it. You know, I started to ask, Well, did I really have it?’ But obviously I did.

So you didn’t lose your hair or anything like that?

No no, no impact on anything. Quite extraordinary. Because, yes you’re right, I mean when people say you’re going to have chemotherapy, one of the first things you think is you’re going to lose your hair, and my mine’s quite thick and long and it gets very long. I mean I wasn’t looking forward to that butMind you that, actually that’s a point, I don’t think I was ever told that I wouldn’t or mightn’t. Whether this particular drug is one that doesn’t do it, but if that’s the case I think I should have been told, but I wasn’t. But anyway it didn’t happen and, no, life just carried on and gradually I felt better and better.

There was sort of two knock-ons. Curiously, as soon as my leukaemia seemed to have been cured I then developed polycythaemia, which is the red cells started going out of control, so I was having to have, not blood transfusions, but blood taken out, which was rather painful, not very pleasant for a while. But anyway that settled down.

Is there any relationship between polycythaemia and leukaemia, do you know?

Well, it’s unusual to have them. From what the consultant was wondering was whether it was because one had sort of got rid of the rogue white cells that somehow it had allowed the red ones or something – I mean I’m no expert so I don’t really know – to sort of take over a bit. But I know that since when I’ve mentioned it to other consultants they’ve said, Oh that’s interesting. You don’t often get these two together But I don’t know much about it, apart from that…

it’s a new one on me.

Yes, it’s also a rather sort of mediaeval practice to cure it. You just drain blood out of the patient, but there we are, that seems to be the way.

But it works?

Oh yes yes, it worked, yes. Just thins the blood I suppose.

And the hairy cell really it’s the white cells become hairy there, it’s sort of a funny shape and spread too much, so the only thing is to try and kill those off and get back to normal. But, as I say, after six weeks he did a final check and said, That’s it. No need to come back. Took me totally by surprise but he said, Yes it is amazing, as a drug it really is good.

That was basically it. I mean I’ve had lots of other problems but this one certainly surprised me how easily it was cured. And nowadays I try, if anyone mentions it, I always try and say, Well, if they’ve got something much worse, I’ll say, Well, you never know, just give them an idea of what my case was so that it’s not all negative and gloom and doom.

How has having leukaemia affected your work? Were you still working when you had it?

92, 50, no, I think I’d just finished, I had to retire because of ill health anyway. No, I had just retired so it didn’t. The tiredness side, of course, meant that while I was doing other things, because when I retired I knew that I couldn’t just retire, I had to do other things, and one was, not actually work again, but do other things that I’d never done before, so I was doing courses and joining things, so the leukaemia did affect that because I didn’t feel up to doing it. But, as I said, the whole thing was over within a matter of weeks, so it’s just remarkable really how little impact in the end it had.

Have you been in touch with any support organisations or support groups for your leukaemia?

No, not in the sense of belonging. I mean I’ve looked on websites and read other people’s experiences. In fact I find that very useful actually because obviously then you realise you’re not alone. And then it’s also interesting to see how they coped with something that might be worrying you. And the other thing I did do was put my own experiences out on a particular website simply to sort of counterbalance all the bad, you know, not horror stories but the bad stories, and show that you can come through it fairly easily, as I did.

Are you the sort of person that would join a support group if there was one in your local town?

No, I’d rather do it myself.

Why is that?

Just personality, you know, I’m responsible for my own life and just, I don’t. I also don’t, I mean going back to the alcohol thing, I tried AA a couple of times, it just absolutely didn’t suit me and was horrible hearing other people’s experiences and just realising what dreadful things do go on. But I never felt it actually aided me, I just always feel that if there’s something that needs solving I’ve got to do it and, just my approach.