Living with and after leukaemia: My story

Hi!

Thank you for coming to my blog. I ask you only to find few minutes and read my story.

My name is Ankica Vranesic; I am 39 years old, married and a mother of two children. I live in small town in Croatia, and I’m currently unemployed.

Last summer I fell ill with something, no doctor could specify what was happening to me. I had high temperatures that no medication could lower.

At last I was hospitalised with pneumonia in Karlovacka opca bolnica. This is where my story begins.

Although treating this kind of illness takes about two weeks I’ve spent a month there. Upon the end of my treatment doctors found something unusual in my blood tests. I was sent to analyse my bone marrow. After months of tests I was diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

I’ve ended up in KB Merkur, a hospital in Zagreb, more than a hundred kilometres away from my home. I was treated with chemotherapy. My husband travelled every day he could spare to see me. Sometimes he would even end up late for work just to visit me and make my time pass quicker. My children also came to see me every time they got the chance, every time their school obligations would let them.

Time passed, my first round of chemotherapy was over. After 5 weeks in a hospital I went home to recover and prepare for my next round of therapy. After the first round I was very weak and felt sick every day, throwing up and hardly had strength to do anything. My hair also fell off.

I all this time I hadn’t gone to work. I was off sick, but that didn’t count and the company some time threat me to fire me if I don’t show up. My colleagues managed to persuade executives to hold on that decision for a while.

Two weeks passed, I was back in hospital and on my second round of chemotherapy.

At this time doctors started to look for a bone marrow donor. My three brothers and my father were submitted to a test. Later it would be found out that my youngest brother is almost a perfect match for me.

Second round of chemotherapy was as bad as first one. I felt ill and weak every day. Time passed slowly, I was in isolation and visitation was limited to 15 minutes daily. My husband still managed to come and see me almost every day. Everything at home was put at halt. My daughter was in school and my son was in college in Zagreb. He came to see me as often he could.

Here I would wish to thank to all the doctors and nurses that took care of me while I was in Merkur, they are good people and thank you for what you did - you gave me a new chance for life.

After the second round was over, my younger brother, Dražen, was a match for a donor. After spending New Year at home I went home to my final, third round of chemotherapy. This was stronger than first two. I felt very ill and threw up every day. Everything was tiring me, even when my family came to see me I couldn’t talk with them. Their visiting time was reduced to five or so minutes.

I knew the date now I would get my bone narrow transplated – 16^th of January 2008. Just the day before, the 15^th, I got laid off at the factory I worked at. The reason – I was in hospital and unable to work, so they didn’t need a worker that cannot work. My husband battled the director since I needed to sign the resignation, but I had to rest and every kind of stress would really affect me and any bad news would mean possible rejection of new bone marrow.

The director of the factory where I worked for an average pay of 1500 kunas (approximately 200 euros) a month didn’t care much and wouldn’t change his decision, although my husband begged him to. He (his name is Josip Sojat) said he couldn’t do anything; he’s not responsible that I fell ill and he doesn’t need a worker that can’t work. Since I was unable to sign my resignation, he was forcing my husband to work behind my back and sign it instead, which he refused. Later threats were made that they will cancel my social security and I will be unable to stay in hospital, and under that my husband decided to sign it in my name.

The factory itself is not doing well; foreclosure is just a matter of time. These days this is the main concern of their workers.

I found out for my notice of termination when I got home. Operation and transplantation went OK; I was still in hospital for 20 days to recover from it.

My husband works for government firm, a railroad company, and he earns about 3500 kunas a month (about 450 euros). We have two children, Katarina (17) and Danijel (20). They both are excellent students and we never had any problems with them. Now the problem exists in paying our life expenses. Since average salary in Croatia is about 5500 kunas (750 euros) and covers about 70 percent of life expenses, and we now live on half of that we had to cut down our life expenses to a minimum.

A great injustice was done to my family and me and that pains me. We’ve written to everyone that could make a difference, with no answer. I’ve written to our minister of family and social issues, Jadranka Kosor, and got no reply. Even when my story went on the news it didn’t change much. The only result was that director Josip Sojat retired on pressure of the public, stating as the reason of his retirement “health problems”.

For my recovery I need very expensive medication which my current medical insurance does not cover. I also mustn't eat anything containing gluten or preservative, so I also have to buy special food ingredients which are more expensive than ordinary ones. The gluten-free flour is my biggest concern, I have to specially order it from Zagreb and this takes time and money, which we can barely manage.

Now I ask you to do something and help me in any way you can.

I would appreciate anything. Simply putting a link on your website to my blog will help me a lot.

You can donate using paypal. My paypal account address is avranesic@net.hr, and that is also the address on which you can contact me if you have any other question or advices. I would love to hear from any of you and share my experience about living with and after this terrible illness, which I wouldn’t wish to anybody.