This is my story, it's quite long but if you read to the end, hopefully there is a point to it!
In 2013 I had a PE post surgery and was very poorly. I was told it was a 1 in 1000 chance.
In 2015 I was getting up in the night probably too much, my wife persuaded me to go to my GP. He said it was unlikely at 54 that I had prostate cancer but referred me to the hospital. Following a biopsy I was back the following week to the consultant and was told I had stage 1 prostate cancer.
Last year I had to have a prostate biopsy under general and the pre op bloods picked up my high platelets. Then referred to Haematology. Bloods taken but was told ET was very unlikely (between 1 and 3 in every 100000).
3 weeks later I was back with consultant and given the news that I had tested positive for the JAK 2 mutation (put on hydroxycarbamide and aspirin)
My whole point in sharing this is to highlight that when we are told that something is unlikely to happen, it doesn't mean it won't!
Whatever your own MPN variants and medications, we are all at some sort of increased risk and however small, why on earth would you take that risk. The outbreak of Coronavirus is a once in a generation occurrence so if you can just take those extra precautions, whether or not you get a letter, you will all hopefully stay safe. There is lots of advice out there, some of it conflicting, but the simple fact is the experts don't really know how we would be affected. My Haematologist has told me I'm in the high risk group and I will be self isolating as much as I can but still exercising away from other people.
My experiences have taught me that where my health is concerned it's sometimes sensible to assume 'worst case scenario', without being completely over the top!
I, for one, don't want to become another statistic 'with an underlying health condition'.
Rant over, stay safe everyone.
Ian
We want Answers that don’t yet exist for Covid 19
ET cancer or not.
Covid 19 when?
