DETECTIVE REAL LIFE
When Chloe-Leigh Todd, 23, from Gateshead, started Googling her symptoms, she never thought that her predictions would become a deadly reality…
Trying to peek at the back of my throat, I stuck my tongue out in the mirror.
With awhiteish film covering it and afew pinkish spots nearing my tonsils, that explained why Ihad been feeling under the weather at the start of 2020.
‘It must be tonsilitis,’ Iahhhed to my little sister Kaira, now 14, as she had come over for the afternoon to help me look after my son Dominic, then one.
With my partner at the time working away from home alot, my mum Claire, 40, dad Brian, 41, and my brother Kye, 20, would rally around to lend me a helping hand.
Which was something I felt like I needed more during that time.
With what started as asore throat in February 2020, it had been getting worse.
Feeling as if my tonsils were on fire, waking up drenched in sweat and strange rashes appearing all over my body, as well as achest infection and being diagnosed with oral thrush, Iwas exhausted.
I couldn’t eat dinner without being sick
At times, after putting Dominic to bed, I couldn’t eat my dinner without being sick and I didn’t have a period for three months straight.
Which lead me to one thought. Am Ipregnant? Only, with a negative test glaring back at me, that wasn’t the solution either.
Even after going to the walkin centre, being given antibiotics for my throat, I still didn’t have an answer for what was wrong with me.
‘Have you been on drugs?’
Dad asked, taking alook at me.
Losing alot of weight in just a few months, my face aghostly pale, Icould see why he thought so –I felt like death.
And with every week that passed, it felt like there was always something new going on –being ill had just become a regular occurrence.
It was time for me to take my diagnosis into my own hands.
Using Google became apart of my nightly routine.
My search history was littered with every symptom under the sun.
And there was one same, stark result staring back at me –leukaemia.
I didn’t really know how to feel. It was acrazy concept, but every symptom pointed to it. I’m only 19. Surely not? ‘Hi, this is going to sound really strange, but I think I have leukaemia,’ I said, calling 111.
I didn’t know what else to do –Covid meant that getting aGP appointment was almost impossible.
‘That’s very rare, you won’t have that,’ the operator laughed.
However, Iwasn’t going to back down.
And after pushing to have a blood test at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, in June 2020, all Ihad to do was wait yet another few weeks.
That very night,
