Hello
My mum was diagnosed with AML in September. It is shocking and extremely upsetting to see such a big change in her in a couple of months for someone usually so full of energy and enjoying life and now she is basically house bound and can hardly move. She has been told she has no immune system and will be stopping chemo until further bone marrow testing which could take weeks and will just delay things further. She will have to come in for weekly blood tests but what worries me is that she is immunosuppressed and had already had pneumonia, I worry about getting her to hospital as she is too weak and scared about picking up another infection while she waits around potentially for hours awaiting results and whether she needs a transfusion or not. It’s very concerning and wonder whether a district nurse could do the blood tests at home instead and how to go about this?
Hi Murraymint01 and welcome to this corner of the Community although always sorry to see folks joining us. I am Mike Thehighlander and I help out around our blood cancer groups.
I am sorry to hear about your mum. This is such a challenge time. I don’t have AML but was diagnosed way back in 1999 with a rare incurable but treatable type of NHL Stage 4a and although my blood cancer ‘type’ is different I understand this journey rather well unfortunately.
Infection is a big risk and over my many years I have had my fair share of these. Regular Hospital appointment and blood cancers is unfortunately par for the course. At times I was at hospital 3-4 times a week.
I think you need to talk through the possibility of getting the district nurse to come in to take the blood tests as this will help you all. I was having weekly visits following one part of my treatment for my treatment line maintenance and bloods. This was organised by my hospital team through the community nursing team. I was then given the direct line for the community nurse team who were actually based at my GP surgery and I could call them at any time.
This was before the craziness of Covid so can’t make any comment about how well the service is running now.
But do talk with your mum’s hospital team and/or her GP.
Always around to chat.
Thanks Mike the highlander. That is really useful information and I will follow that up 
