Homeless,Pregnant And Blood Cancer

When I was 18 I had an underbite that was only going to get worse & went in for corrective surgery. I have 5.5″ taken off my jaw in total & the recovery process was long. I was back at work a short while & the metal plates started coming out so I got a call at work one day telling me I was due in the hospital to have them removed the next day.

Proper panicked & cleared it with work knowing I’d have recovery time again & was nil by mouth by midnight. They had checked my bloods & said that they’d previously been abnormal so they didn’t want to put me under & would rather just take bloods & have me back at a different time which was fine. I left the hospital & had a phone call 5/10 minutes later telling me my bloods had come back high in potassium & I needed to get to a&e, I was rushed through to a doctor straight away & he told me he had to inject me with insulin or I was at risk of my heart stopping.

I remember standing up to tell the nurse the machine was beeping & I remember her asking if I was dizzy & when I opened my eyes my body was in the middle of a fit, I was lying on a bed & I had all sorts of people round me screaming stat. They gave me glucose sweets & told me I had to have a line of sugar injected into me, I was having a hypo & if I slipped into a coma they might not be able to wake me.

When I opened my eyes again my arm was covered in blood & my whole body just felt weak. I had a kidney specialist in to explain I’d have to stay in for a few weeks & have hormonal injections & tests they thought I had a rare kidney disease which was later confirmed. I was back at work a few weeks again & I collapsed. They rushed me to hospital & checked my bloods & found a high platelet count.

I was referred to a haematologist & after a bone marrow biopsy they confirmed I had blood cancer. I broke it to my family gently & my mum told me it wasn’t real cancer if they weren’t going to give me chemo & the rest of them just kind of said OK. I broke down to my ex & he told me to ‘man the fuck up’. I couldn’t work & was on sick pay & my mum was taking 3/4 of my money for digs so I was in my ex’s car or locked in my bedroom.

I found out I was pregnant 2 days after Christmas & everybody was so excited about it. I had my first scan in the January & they stopped my sick pay, I had moved on to ESA but it hadn’t been accepted yet so I hadn’t been paid, there was a 5 week delay before they’d pay me but the money would be backdated. My mum told me I could either give her money or get out her house & I had no choice but to leave.

My ex’s mum offered to let me move in & it was fine to start with but then he lost his job & he was sleeping until 5pm, I’d make him dinner & he’d go out & come home drunk at all sorts of times demanding food or putting the telly up loud so I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t go anywhere because he didn’t allow me to, his family stopped speaking to me so I sat in a room by myself day after day hoping I’d have a house before my baby was born.

I got buses to hospital appointments but anything to do with the baby he was there playing doting dad & acting so nice to me then he’d drop me off & leave me to go get drunk or high or both. I started to hate myself. It got so much one night I walked until I found a bridge & I would’ve just jumped but my baby kicked & I realised it wasn’t just my life anymore. I collapsed walking back & someone found me & phoned an ambulance.

Luckily my baby was OK. He picked me up from the hospital & told me he’d kill me if I ever went anywhere without telling him. It only got worse when we moved in together which was a mistake right away. I couldn’t see anyone. I barely saw my family unless they popped by suddenly. I decorated my house myself at 8 months pregnant & I built all the furniture, I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I wasn’t allowed to have anyone in. I sat in the house every night alone so when my baby finally came I promised I’d never let her feel loneliness.

I phoned the police the first time he ever hit me but he made me feel like it was my fault that i caused it which sounds baffling now but at the time I could’ve swore it was all me. I phoned the police when he strangled me, I phoned the police when he stopped me & his mum leaving the house with my daughter, I phoned the police when he locked us in & threw the keys out the window. I was far too scared to leave him though, I thought he’d maybe just stop just be the person I fell in love with. I didn’t realise who he was I was just finally seeing the real him.

My granddad died & he wasn’t there. The day I went to view his body he tried to stop me & threw me into the fence outside. I told my family I slipped. He made me late for his funeral on purpose & actually tried to make it up to me when I fell apart but I hated him then, I just hated him. My daughter didn’t know him because he was never there. He started working again & I was basically his mother & his punching bag but it gave me freedom because he was at work all day.

Eventually he pushed it too far & when he realised he couldn’t push me anymore he left. He changed his mind after two days obviously having expected me to beg him back & tried to control me again but I said no. He showed up at an outdoor shopping center the night before my little girl turned 1 & threw me into a shop window with her in my arms. I called the police from my mums car & he chased us all the way home after having her car blocked in & the car in front moving.

He snapped his key in my door so I couldn’t lock it. He was arrested & given bail conditions the next day. i spent my daughters 1St birthday on the phone to victim support & the procurator fiscal & answering the door to the police on top of my uncle had died a few days before & it was the viewing of his body that day.

I built myself up after that & it wasn’t easy. I phoned breathing space every night checking my doors & wardrobes & under the bed. I grew anxiety which I never had be& I was scared 24/7. I finally built myself back up & I started to feel ill. My stomach blew up like a balloon bloated constantly to the stage I looked almost 8 months pregnant. I was at the doctors every week & a&e every 2ND week for 9 months. They told me the same thing each time. Heartburn.

Eventually the doctor told me he’d do an ultrasound I think to shut me up. It showed an enlarged spleen. I was referred to gastrointerology (I still can’t spell it.) 3 weeks before my appointment I went back to a&e, I couldn’t walk, I could barely breathe.

The doctor took some fluid from my stomach, rushed me for a CT scan & put me on all sorts of drips. I had 85% organ failure on my liver, kidneys, pancreas spleen & a few other things. My portal vein was obliterated. It had a clot which had wrapped round my liver & I’d been dying slowly for 9 months, I had an hour give or take before my heart gave out with lack of blood & my organs all shut down before that doctor put me on they drips. I was rushed up to a liver specialist hospital in Edinburgh & had 8 1/2 litres of fluid drained from by stomach before they operated & put stents in me.

The operation was the day of my daughters 3rd birthday & I had to cancel her party & I sat crying for an hour & a half I’ve never felt so guilty in all my life. I hate myself for it to this day that she spent her 3rd birthday seeing me for 10 minutes before an operation. It went pretty badly I was ill & they had me hooked up to all sorts of machines in high dependency after for 2 weeks. The day after I came out of hospital was the day I was due to see the gastro doctor.

Safe to say if I waited on the appointment I wouldn’t be here. It took a while to get used to having 3 rare diseases & I manged to get diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis a few months ago which is pretty common at least! I’m pretty much just collecting diseases at this point.

I’m still here though & I have an amazing 5 Year old little girl who holds my hand when I get blood taken & tells me I’m OK when I go into hospital to get my stent adjusted.

I am thankful for the life I now have, my daughter keeps me going.