Unstoppable Testimonies

Hello! My name is Ares. It all started on 6 August 2015 when I was working, feeling tired and with a pain in my chest. I decided to go to the nearest medical centre. And, just as I was dressed, I went thinking I had caught a cold. When I went into the doctor’s office, he asked me how long it had been since I’d had a blood test because my skin tone was too yellow. I was a bit surprised and he said “look, we’ll do an emergency test just in case”.

The look on his face when he came back was not normal. He simply told me “you can’t leave here, an ambulance is going to come and take you to the hospital. You are so anaemic that I don’t know how you can stand up. And the blood test results have come back with significant alterations. Something is going on”. I was very scared. Just like that an ambulance came and took me to the hospital. They put me in a box and told me that I had to wait for the haematologist to come in the morning because there was no emergency service. My family came and decided to transfer me to the Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona, where there was an emergency haematologist.

I will always remember that night: tests and more tests, bone marrow aspiration… I got the news the next day at three o’clock in the afternoon. “You have acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with the Ph+ chromosome”. I needed a bone marrow transplant. The first thing I said was: “Am I going to die?” And the doctor’s answer was: “Ares, we will give you a curative treatment”. I don’t think I was aware of what he had said to me, I didn’t even cry. It was horrifying to tell my parents and my sister. You never think it can happen to you. The next day they put the catheter in and started the chemotherapy treatment, for which I was hospitalised for a month. It was very hard as I had to choose between starting treatment immediately or not being able to have children. I guess I didn’t even think about it.

Thanks to a roommate I had, that month was quite bearable. But it is very hard to see yourself like this from one day to the next. No time to assimilate. I never thought of giving up, I looked at my family and I couldn’t give up. Everything went very well. After that I re-admitted every week for two months. The chemotherapy was very tough. I would swell up, my hair fell out, I had fevers… But what was clear to me was that when I got home I wasn’t going to stay in bed, I would go out with my friends to go for a walk or whatever. Basically, I was trying to forget about what I had and it really worked. I stayed strong and lively.  I finished the treatment on 29 November and I no longer had the disease: I was in complete remission. They decided to leave me be for the whole month of December so that I could be with my family. I enjoyed Christmas and the New year. Very much so. All this time they were looking for a bone marrow donor for me as my only sister was not compatible. Luckily, and thanks to the Josep Carreras Foundation, they managed to find a person who was 100% compatible with me. I was both excited and horrified by the fear. After being out for a month without illness, going back into an isolation chamber for a month or more was going to be tough. Besides, I didn’t know if it was going to turn out well, if I was going to reject it… I was very scared. I was admitted on 8 January and on 14 January I had the transplant. Everything went so well that I was discharged on the 30th. I was able to spend my 27th birthday at home. Today it has been 6 years since I was transplanted and I am doing well, finishing my degree in Psycho-oncology. So I just want to say that I would never