Tears still well in Charmaine Aldridge’s eyes as she recalls the day a stranger’s bone marrow saved her life.
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Sitting in her Lavington home this week, the 37-year-old is surrounded by balloons and a giant inflatable number 2.
It celebrates her second “blood birthday” – the day on October 14, 2016 she received a vital transplant from an anonymous 24-year-old man in Germany.
The symptoms of the cancer came on stealthily.
Charmaine, working full-time in office administration and with no previous health issues, started to feel more tired than usual.
She lost her appetite, was bruising easily and had a rash on the back of her knees – “but I have eczema so I didn’t think anything of it”.
One day Charmaine was gripped by severe stomach pain; she got a last-minute appointment to see a GP who found she had an extremely high temperature.
“The doctor sent me for blood tests at 4pm on the Friday and by 7pm a pathologist called me and told me to present to Albury hospital within the hour,” she recalls.
“He told me he couldn’t get hold of my doctor and that he couldn’t tell me what was going on except that there were abnormalities in the blood test – I was shocked.”
When Charmaine arrived at the hospital, staff were waiting for her and she was rushed to a bed where canulas were inserted into both arms filled with fluids and antibiotics.
“The doctor came to see me and told me my blood count was abnormal and that I had leukaemia; I was told I would be transferred to Royal Melbourne Hospital that night,” she recalls.
The ambulance drive early the next day passed in “a bit of a blur” for Charmaine who says by then “I really wasn’t very well at all”.
Once she got to Melbourne, Charmaine was told she had Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and a bone marrow biopsy would be needed to determine the stage of the cancer.
AML is a rare type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow; about 900 people in Australia are diagnosed each year.
There followed endless rounds of chemotherapy with “the high possibility” Charmaine would need a bone marrow transplant.
She spent the next month in hospital and couldn’t leave the ward because her immune system was so compromised.
From April to September Charmaine was in and out of hospital for chemo, platelet and blood transfusions before doctors decided a bone marrow transplant was urgently needed.
Earlier tests showed neither her brother nor sister were a donor match.
Thankfully a global bone marrow registry uncovered a “nearly perfect match” in the form of a young German man who agreed to be a donor.
To have a stranger be my cure, well it was almost unbelievable.
- Charmaine Aldridge
“It’s really incredible – they have a system over there where there is an extensive registry of donors,” Charmaine says explaining a bone marrow transplant nurse accompanies the precious cargo to Australia.
And while the day of this life-saving transfusion is a momentous occasion, in reality it’s actually a bit of an anti-climax, she admits.
“It’s like a blood transfusion and took a whole 20 minutes – and I had a whole new immune system,” Charmaine laughs.
Agonisingly, she had to spend the next seven months in Melbourne as the medical team monitored her progress like a hawk.
She was wasn’t allowed to move back home until May 25, 2017 – a “huge relief”.
Charmaine will be eternally grateful for the assistance of the Leukaemia Foundation, which offered priceless emotional support and helped with accommodation and transport in Mebourne for more than a year.
It’s why she will join the Border’s Light the Night event from 6.30pm in Albury’s QEII Square on October 26.
It's an evening to support those facing their own blood cancer journey and to remember loved ones lost.
The Leukaemia Foundation event includes a beautiful evening lantern walk with the aim to transform the darkness into a sea of glowing light to beat blood cancer.
In 2015 Sue Odgers and Fiona Herring hosted an event on the Border to add their support to the campaign to raise funds and awareness for the foundation.
Fiona, a Wodonga midwife, lost her son Eithan on December 5, 2002 at just 23 months of age.
He had fought a brave battle against acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
Sue’s husband Kevin was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in February, 2013 when he was 60 years of age.
However, in August that year Kevin developed a rare but aggressive lymphoma which took his life on September 29, 2013.
Sue said the “amazing support” of staff at the Royal Melbourne and Leukaemia Foundation had been a great comfort.
It prompted her to attend Benalla’s Light the Night Walk in 2014 – an evening she found “hugely inspirational” – and start up an event on the Border.
Charmaine will attend the Albury walk still incredulous someone she didn’t know on the other side of the world turned the tide on her potentially fatal cancer.
“To have a stranger be my cure, well it was almost unbelievable,” Charmaine says.
“I know I’m very lucky that my story has a happy ending.”
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