'Cancer Bullet ' helps Easingwold leukaemia sufferer Harvey Greenwood (From Gazette & Herald)

'Cancer Bullet ' helps Easingwold leukaemia sufferer Harvey Greenwood

10:25am Monday 19th July 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

WHEN Harvey Greenwood was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 30, the prognosis wasn’t good. In what he describes as his “doctor at the end of the bed moment” he was told the odds were against him.

With no siblings to provide a bone-marrow match, a donor would have to be found, and even then the chances of success were just 40 per cent. The odds were similar for the drug Interferon, his other option.

The father-of-two from Easingwold said: “I could be cured, however on average, life expectancy would be five years.

“I cannot even begin to explain what that statistic does with your mind. It is like being given a death sentence with maybe less, but maybe more than five years to think about it.”

That was nine years ago. Earlier this month Harvey, 39, completed a gruelling three-week trek along the 270 miles of the Pennine Way - raising more than £6,500 for the Leukaemia &Lymphoma Research charity.

In his own words, Harvey told us how a new wonder drug, plus the determination to see his kids grow up, has seen him keep his illness in check.

Looking back to 2001, he said: “I am not ashamed to say it was the most frightening time of my life, yet there had been signs something was not right for the previous 18 months or so.

“I had been constantly fatigued and had been to the doctors on various occasions with different “small” issues including struggling to breathe and a significant tooth abscess.

Harvey put it all down to work and the fact he and his wife Fiona were raising their 10-month-old daughter, with another one on the way.

However, it was while driving to his job in Maidenhead, Harvey noticed difficulty seeing in one eye, and so made an appointment with an optician.

He said: “I owe a great deal to the optician, and unfortunately never got his name.”

That optician referred Harvey to an eye consultant the next day, who took a number of blood samples.

A few days later Harvey said he received a phone call from the hospital and still remembers the words to this day.

“We would like you to come in to the hospital, we suggest you pack an overnight bag, you have a high white blood count and we need to see you ASAP. Have you got a family member that can come with you?”

“From then on it was a whirlwind – I cannot exactly remember when the diagnosis came, other than one of the nurses saying ‘we are amazed you have walked through the door’.

“My white cell count was 375. It should be eight to 12. My blood system was so clogged up with white cells it was barely functioning properly, which would explain a great deal of the fatigue over time and the ‘black spot’ in my right eye.”

Harvey had been diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML), and, after learning of the chances of success for a bone marrow transplant or the drugs on offer, he and his wife pinned their hopes on trials for a new wonder drug.

“The drug was called STI 571 or Imatinib and is also known as Glivec or Gleevec, and I wanted to give it a go. If it didn’t work then the original two options would still be there.

“A couple of days later hopes were dashed. There were no trials open and it was not available on the NHS as it was still in trial. Despite the setback, Harvey never lost hope and decided to see if his health insurance would pay for him to take the Imatinib.

He said: “In August 2001, the call came and I could start on Imatinib with the insurance company agreeing to fund it – a decision we are grateful for to this day. A light at the end of the tunnel was there again.

“So started my daily regime of 400mg of Glivec, The Magic Cancer Bullet as it became to be known, a drug that not only changed life for my family and I, but one that changed the face of CML treatment and the wider context of targeted cancer therapy.

“My blood counts immediately started to stabilise, I had few side effects other than a few aches and a little nausea.”

Earlier this year, Harvey decided to do something which had been at the back of his mind since childhood.

“The Pennine way is something I always wanted to do since I saw the signs when I was young and asked my parents what it was. It’s always been in the background.

“I always knew if I was going to do something for charity I wanted it to be big.”

And so,on May 31, Harvey set out from a hostel in Edale, on his 270-mile trek. “The main drive of doing the walk is to give something back,” he said.

Whilst I cannot claim to be ‘cured’ to all extents and purposes Glivec has for myself and many others made CML a chronically managed disease.”

Harvey aimed to raise £5,000 for Leukaemia &Lymphoma Research and so far has raised about £6,500.

To make a donation, visit Harvey’s page at original.justgiving.com/harveygreenwood or read his blog at leukaemiacharity.wordpress.com

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)