A woman with incurable cancer has told how the disease turned her life upside down — and caused her to shrink four inches. Debbie Archer, 60, had suffered a bug bite while gardening and was trying to show it to colleagues at the pharmacy where she worked when she slipped and suffered a serious back injury.
She was left in agony. After two months of relentless pain, a doctor referred her for an MRI scan which revealed compression fractures on her spine. Debbie, of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, said: “Two days later, my GP called and said there was evidence of myeloma. I had never heard of it and went straight onto the internet. I read the words ‘incurable’ and ‘cancer’ and didn’t want to know any more.”
Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that develops from plasma cells in the bone marrow. It affects around 33,000 people in the UK.
Symptoms include pain (particularly in the back, rib cage and hips), fatigue and broken bones as myeloma causes your bones to fracture more easily. While it isn’t curable, treatment can relieve pain and slow the progress of the cancer.
After blood and urine tests, and a bone marrow biopsy, Debbie’s diagnosis of high-risk myeloma was confirmed in September 2017.
She began chemotherapy which caused side effects including breathlessness, tingling in her fingers and difficulty sleeping.
She also noticed she had shrunk in height, from 5ft 6ins to 5ft 2ins, as a result of the compression fractures — a type of broken bone that can cause your vertebrae to collapse.
“I couldn’t believe my cancer had made me shrink,” Debbie said. “I was really upset by how my height and shape had changed.
“I used to have a waist and wear bodycon dresses and now because my back has compressed I feel like I look like a barrel. It was yet another thing to deal with on top of treatment.”
Debbie also underwent two stem cell transplants, the first using her own cells which were removed and put back in after chemotherapy had destroyed most of the cancer cells, and a second from her brother Ian, 62.
She said: “I always knew my family would help if they could but it was a huge thing to see my brother put himself through the procedure to help me. I’ll always be grateful.”
Debbie went on to have three rounds of another kind of transplant called a donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI), where Ian’s healthy white blood cells were transferred into her.
Eventually, she received the news that she was in partial remission. This meant the cancer cells were reduced but not completely gone. Debbie continues to receive treatment to keep it at bay.
Although her diagnosis was initially devastating, Debbie has developed a positive outlook on her situation. She said: “I remember coming home from the hospital and sitting in the bathroom and thinking: I’m going to die. It was devastating.
“But then in the next breath I thought to myself: Everyone dies. We just don’t know when.
“For me it might happen earlier than I was expecting but in that moment I thought about what I wanted to get out of life. I knew I wanted to travel as much as I could.”
She has travelled widely since her diagnosis, going to New York, Cuba, Hong Kong and Stockholm, and has taken a fundraising challenge to trek the 185-mile Thames Path to raise money for Myeloma UK.
Debbie is passionate about raising awareness of myeloma. Sharing advice for other patients, she added: “Try not to focus on the statistics about myeloma because it is an average and everybody is different so you don’t know where you sit on that average.
“Get as much help and information as you can and make the most of the life you have.”
Janis McCulloch, head of campaigns at Myeloma UK, said a lack of awareness about the symptoms of myeloma meant some people are diagnosed too late.
She added: “Every day counts while you’re waiting for a diagnosis, and yet a third of patients visit their GP at least three times before being diagnosed.
“One of the biggest barriers remains identifying the symptoms quickly and before too much damage is done.
“We know that doctors and patients can use very different language to describe the same symptoms, which is why we have a symptom translator at myelomauk.org.uk to help with these conversations and ultimately get people the diagnosis they need.
“People with myeloma can’t wait. We need your help to spread the word about myeloma, share the translator and catch the disease earlier.”
