My husband has AML and I need emotional support

Good Morning Travt77.  I am the lady you mention.  I am so sorry that you and your wife are on this journey.  There will be many lows and many highs on the journey, days of despair and days of joy.  AML is not a death sentence, medical science has come a long way and they are learning all the time.  While there is life there is hope and use that to educate yourself, question everything. The doctors sometimes don't tell you the whole picture, so as not to overwhelm you, so ask.  Understand the medical terms, if you don't understand something, ask or look it up. Research is key. 

Chemotherapy is often shit and those times will be hard, especially hard for you watching the person you love so poorly.  The one thing that I learnt was that I needed to be the strength, my husband was reliant on me so I had to step up and not cause him more distress by falling apart.

Looking back, for the 18 months we fought it we found a new depth to our love that I will treasure forever.

This is a very supportive site so use it to vent and let go of your emotions so they don't build up.

Take good care of you

Jenny x

Hi Trav77 I’m sorry that your wife is being hit by the speeding double decker bus that is Aml.  It is hard on the patient (Obviously of course!!!!) and also very tough on those of us that love them.  My husb was diagnosed with aml Jan 2017.  So that’s 3.5 yr ago.   He had a very rocky ride (lots of complications) but he is still here and in remission we pray  (he went for another biopsy today - just as standard follow up). he didn’t have flt3 but I do personally know of 2 others who did have flt 3 diagnosed similar time to him and they are both proving CAN be beaten.  Both of these ladies had SCT but are living testimony That it CAN work.  Im not on McMillan often anymore but you will find so many folk on here who “get” what you n ur missus are going thru.  From a patient perspective and from the perspective of someone who loves them.

i won’t give pointless platitudes n tell you everything is gonna be ok ... Cos we all know that sometimes it isn’t.  But I can tell you really it CAN be beaten.  People are beating this aml crap everyday world over .... even the flt gene - yes it’s a bad subtype (not that aml is ever good!) but people can and do win!!  Xxx

Hi Trav,

i saw your post and was pleased the advice from a councillor to me also helped you. 

My husband is doing well even though he has also had pneumonia and a nasty bout of shingles which still gives him trouble. 

We enjoy each day we have together and just carry on loving each other. 

He had a bone marrow transplant in Sept 2017 so we are nearly 3 years since then. We have been shielding for 12 weeks but on Saturday we got dressed up, I put a new dress on and he put his holiday shirt on. We sat at the table with a lovely meal and a bottle of wine. Afterwards we had a sing song and a little dance in our front room. A special evening.

I send you and your wife my love and strength to help you both xx

Hi Travt77 - I was diagnosed with AML in February 2018 again with the FLT mutation. My prognosis was poor but my wife’s strength of love for me pushed me through a somewhat rocky treatment route. I thankfully had her as my wing woman to listen to the doctors, question my treatment and shower me with constant optimism. It was only after my stem cell transplant that I ever googled anything to do with AML. The treatment journey may and will through up many unexpected complications.

I truely believe that I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t  been for Steph pushing me to eat a bit, drink a sip and to walk a few steps. The love you describe is an all important foundation for getting through this. 

Thank you for your kind words and for offering hope when it is hard to come by. I am glad you had a loving wife to stand by you during your treatments. 

This whole mess is just more than I ever expected to deal with. But I suppose no one ever does expect these things. We were just getting to the time in our lives where we could spend more time on “us”. The boys have almost grown, and financially we are just getting to the best place we’ve ever been. The future was so bright, then this dark cloud descended.  

We are keeping hope alive though. I am trying to stay strong for her. I can only hope our love and the doctors wits will see us through this nightmare. 

It helps to have a place like this to vent and I am grateful for you and the others who have replied. 

May each of you continue to fight the good fight! Love as long as you can love! Be happy as much as you can be happy! For NO ONE knows when their time here is over. 

Stay strong, your wife needs you.

Al