A teaching assistant from Desford tragically died the same day she was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia.
While working full-time at Stafford Leys Primary School, in Leicester Forest East, Liz Taylor started to suffer from fatigue problems as well as migraines in May last year. Initially, she thought they were due to a hectic lifestyle.
When visiting her GP they found that she had a low blood count but the reason for it was thought to be a virus, however, Ms Taylor began to struggle even more with blurred vision during increasingly painful migraines, reports Devonlive.
After being taken to A&E she was diagnosed with neutropenia – a condition which means sufferers have a low number of a particular type of white cells in their blood, but this didn’t answer the cause for the condition.
Her symptoms intensified over the next few weeks, developing severe pain in her chest and leg, more migraines and further blurred vision that led to her suffering heavy bleeding.
MRI scans at the Leicester Royal Infirmary confirmed multiple marks on her brain, with the 51-year-old immediately admitted as doctors believed she was suffering from a heart problem that was causing a series of small strokes. Two weeks after being admitted she suffered a large and serious stroke, with further testing then required.
It was not until July 14 last year that she got the earth-shattering news that she had promyelocytic leukaemia (APML). APML is a rare sub-type of acute myeloid leukaemia which is itself a form of blood cancer, but the news came too late for Liz as she died that very same day.
A year on, her widow Jonathan believes things could have been very different for Liz had the symptoms been identified sooner. The 51-year-old said: “I was searching the internet trying to understand more about APML when I came across Leukaemia UK.
“This prompted me to wish that if only I and the medical teams caring for Liz had the knowledge and foresight to identify the signs earlier, Liz could have been diagnosed sooner.
“Our family, in particular her two daughters, are still coming to terms with our loss, struggling to truly accept what has happened and how or why their beautiful, healthy mum was taken so young.”
Diagnosis of APML is tricky though, with bosses from charity Leukaemia UK revealing it is an “aggressive” and “rapidly-developing” cancer that has non-specific or even vague symptoms. The four most common are fatigue, repeated infections, unusual bruising and unexplained bleeding, but overall it can be difficult to find out APML is the cause without the help of bone marrow biopsies and genetic tests.
Since losing Liz, Jonathan and his two daughters, Kate, 26, and Charlotte, 23, have channelled their grief into raising money for Leukaemia UK. This year alone they have organised a charity luncheon in Hinckley before taking on a challenging 50-mile Summer Solstice Trek which saw Jonathan and colleagues from Experian PLC complete a 50-mile walk from sunrise to sunset.
Ms Taylor’s former school have also put on charity bake sales, with the next fundraiser taking place on Saturday, August 5. This will see the family hold a fundraising golf day at Kilworth Springs Golf Club, with the aim being to surpass the £20,000 mark on all their charitable efforts. So far, the family have raised just under £17,000 for Leukaemia UK.
Fiona Hazel, the chief executive of Leukaemia UK, said: “Our hearts go out to Jonathan and his family for their loss of Liz. Leukaemia UK is working hard to ensure that patients and medics spot symptoms much more quickly and offer the all-important blood test and bone marrow biopsy to diagnose leukaemia.
“The quicker the diagnosis, the quicker treatment can begin. Whilst survival rates are still nowhere near where they should be and treating this disease remains difficult, at Leukaemia UK we know that research has the power to one day stop leukaemia devastating lives.”
