Heartbroken Daughter Who Assumed Weight Loss and Pain Were Grief From Mom’s Death Is Diagnosed With Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

At the time, she was overcome with grief as she struggled to process her mother’s death.

The symptoms did not go away as her grief began to fade, and after six months, she was in worse shape than she had been the days and weeks after losing her mom.

“I tried not to Google my symptoms, but that was impossible,” said McLoughlin. “I knew I had so many symptoms of leukemia, but I tried to convince myself it was something like IBS, and all would be OK.”

In the end, it was not IBS causing her physical pain or the death of her mother fueling her weight loss.

The pain and weight loss, and bruising had all been the result of chronic myeloid leukemia.

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Chronic myeloid leukemia is often diagnosed in older adults, and its symptoms can be similar to those people feel after losing a loved one.

They include feeling rundown and tired, weight loss, blood being drained from the skin and night sweats.

The good news for McLoughlin and anyone else diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia is that it has gone from fatal to almost always treatable in just the past 20 years.

McLoughlin is now looking to spread awareness to others while she fights the disease by taking a tablet known as a tyrosine kinase inhibitor.

“Maybe if I’d seen more about the symptoms in the media and online, I would have gone to my [doctor] much sooner,” she told Birmingham Live.

“At diagnosis, I had 100 percent leukemia cells; by 12 months, I had hit every treatment target and had just 0.048 percent of leukemia cells left in my blood.”

How Do Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Fight Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Tyrosine kinases play a major role in several cell functions. The signaling, growth, and division of cells often involve tyrosine kinases.

Individuals with chronic myeloid leukemia often have these enzymes at levels that are either too high or too active.

A tyrosine kinase inhibitor blocks these enzymes from working against the body and helping to grow cancer cells.

Advancements in Treating Myeloid Leukemia

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and the Categories of Leukemia

Leukemia is different from other types of cancer because it is not just broken down into stages of severity but into different categories based on the cells that grow into cancer cells and how quickly those cells grow. Leukemia means that one type of white blood cell is growing out of proportion to the others and taking up the body’s resources. A leukemia patient’s bone marrow will become filled with these cancer cells, and that could result in anemia, abnormally low levels of platelets, and white blood cells failing to fight off infections.

There are four basic categories doctors use to identify the different types of leukemia.

• Acute leukemia grows very quickly.
• Chronic leukemia grows slower, over several years.
• Lymphoid leukemia grows from lymphoid cells, which produce antibodies and protect against viruses.
• Myeloid leukemia grows from myeloid cells, which is the body’s first defense for bacteria.

Breaking Down Categories of Leukemia

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