Troy's Story

I had been a blood donor since 16. I used to donate plasma as I was often overseas and I couldn't donate whole blood due to the areas I worked in.

NZ Blood 11.06.12-70

Troy Evans with his daughter Catelyn say a big thank you to blood donors

In July 2009 I went to the doctor as I had a small wound on my foot that was taking a long time to heal. The doctor prescribed me a course of antibiotics and sent me off for a blood test, just in case.

About eight hours later my doctor called and told me I had to go to hospital as there was something very serious that had been found with the blood test. Go tonight he said.

My wife drove me to the hospital after we dropped our six month old daughter to her grandparents.

At the A&E dept the nurse on duty took my details and had an orderly take us up to ward 62. They were waiting for us. An IV was put in and they had to do the identification routine, so at about 11pm on a Friday night we went through the routine Name, Date Of Birth (DOB) when I said my DOB the nurse stopped looked up and said Wow you are having a crap birthday we laughed, an understatement! Blood was taken for more tests and they started administering antibiotics.

By this stage a doctor from the ward had spoken with us and told us that they were 99% sure it was leukaemia, then proceeded to explain the different types and how that would take a few days to identify.

So we started on a journey that is still on going. I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and two days later I started on Chemo. It made me very sick.

Over seven months of treatment I spent nearly one out of every two nights in hospital the longest admission being about a month. I spent more time in hospital than at home and I had to stop working. During the course of treatment I received a total of 18 platelets and 24 red cells.

In Feb 2010 I was in remission, and by March I was well enough to return to work although it took about a month more before I started driving the tugs again.

Since then we have shifted to Tauranga and I now work at the port. I still have monthly blood tests to check on how I am doing but I can no longer donate blood.

Thank You to all the donors that helped me to survive without them I would be dead!