Warning to anyone with odd symptoms after ‘vaccine reaction’ was …

18/04/2023

A Yorkshire woman who felt tired and suffered from night sweats before developing a lump was told her condition was likely a reaction to a vaccine, but it turned out to be leukaemia.

Alice Scanlon, 70, began experiencing the night sweats and tiredness in early 2018 and thought it might be a reaction to travel vaccines, or post-menopausal symptoms. When on holiday in January 2018, she found a small lump on the side of her neck.

Alice, from Bridlington, decided to visit her doctor. She said: “I went to see my GP back home who thought it was again probably a reaction to the vaccine, which had caused a raised lymph node.

“He didn’t think it was serious, particularly since I wasn’t feeling ill. He suggested that if it didn’t go or changed in any way, I should go back.”

The lump did not go away and Alice went back to see her GP, who thought it was a cyst and sent her off for tests. She went to hospital for a scan and a full blood count after which, Alice was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL).

“I didn’t hear the first two words… just leukaemia,” said Alice. “I thought that I was going to die.”

Alice Scanlon and her husband (Image: Alice Scanlon/Leukaemia UK)

Thankfully, for the next three years, Alice managed to live a fairly normal life, with regular blood tests. In August 2021, she was told she would need to start treatment as her white blood cells were rapidly increasing.

She received a number of different drugs to help which reduced her white blood cell counts to normal levels and she was in partial remission. Alice has remained on the drugs to this day.

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia is a blood cancer which affects the lymphocyte blood cells. It is the most common form of leukaemia and more than 3,800 people are diagnosed in the UK every year.

Alice is now working with Leukaemia UK ^[2] to raise awareness of the condition. Fiona Hazell, chief executive of Leukaemia UK, said: “Alice’s symptoms were unusual although not unheard of.

“In general, the main symptoms of leukaemia are fatigue, bruising, unusual bleeding and repeated infections. Leukaemia UK is working hard to ensure that patients and medics spot symptoms much more quickly, and offer the all-important blood test and bone marrow biopsy to diagnose leukaemia.

“The quicker the diagnosis, the quicker treatment can be implemented, and in many cases that leads to better outcomes. Important discoveries are happening all the time within blood cancer research. While survival rates are still nowhere near where they should be and treating this disease remains difficult, at Leukaemia UK we know that research has the power to one day stop leukaemia devastating lives.”

Alice Scanlon after her diagnosis (Image: Alice Scanlon/Leukaemia UK)

Alice was lucky to have had some success with treatment and wants to spread the word to people to get their symptoms checked.

She said: “If I had ignored that small lump, it might have been much longer before I was diagnosed. I now feel well, not overly tired, but I know that my CLL will be with me for life.

“My hope for the future is that a total cure for CLL and all blood cancers will be found very soon. I would urge everyone that however simple their symptoms to please get medical checks done.

“So many symptoms can be brushed off as minor things. I wonder if I had had CLL for much longer. I had really drenching night sweats, which I put down to late menopausal symptoms. I was tired but thought that I was just getting older and I had been too busy.”

References

^{^} Yorkshire woman’s life of luxury comes crashing down as her drug empire crumbles around her (www.examinerlive.co.uk)
^{^} Leukaemia UK (www.leukaemiauk.org.uk)