Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

[willll]

Hi everyone. I'm new here and this is my first post.

I'm 18 years old (which will be important later) and have had anxiety my entire life; I've had health anxiety for about 4 years which was massively triggered by my dads death a little over a year ago. I'm on prozac and have been for about a year which is amazing and totally helping with my overall anxiety.

So, anyways, my fear now and for the past few months has been CML or chronic myeloid leukemia. Unfortunately I've googled this condition and found it is almost solely a disease of adults and the elderly, and very rare in children and adolescents. All was well until I went for a blood pressure check on Friday (June 28th) and my doctor asked if I was willing to get my blood work done. She is totally aware of my anxiety, and was quite surprised when I said yes.

It's not the needle I'm scared of; it's the results. This blood test has put me into full blown panic mode. I come here asking a few questions. First, the symptoms I have that correlate with CML are:
- Fatigue
- Occasional night sweats with increased sweating during the day (a side effect of prozac)
- Left upper abdominal pain (which I have previously self diagnosed as splenic flexure syndrome/IBS pains)

My first question is: A few months ago I was in the ER with a nasty virus. I had nausea, projectile vomiting and severe diarrhea. They took blood tests and I'm wondering what blood tests they could've possibly taken? I sure do hope they did a CBC because the results were fine while I was in the emergency room.

Also, do you think this is irrational? That an 18 year old would get this rare disease with barely any symptoms? I know it's irrational, but I want to know what others think.

Thanks for reading :)

[Worrygirl32]

Totally irrational. But the good news is that you can rest assured that if you were in the ER for a virus and they did some blood work on you they most definitely did a CBC. In the ER as far as I know a CBC is pretty much standard for anyone presenting any kind of illness. That gives them a basis of course hemoglobin, hematocrit, rbc, wbc, etc... if there was any sort of cancer of the blood it would definitely show some abnormalities with a CBC. You're most likely in the clear. :yesyes:

[willll]

Thanks for your reply. I get it's totally irrational but the anxiety just takes over sometimes, and it doesn't matter what's rational and what's not.

[willll]

Just called the office to see if the results were in...

Waiting for their call back. Absolutely panicking right now :lac:

[axolotl]

It's funny how this things grab us isn't it, and what we get obsessed by? An 18-year-old worrying about a disease they almost certainly don't have is so sad to see, but I can't say it's any more irrational than any of my own fears really.

In fact your only symptoms are two you already have good explanations for, and one (fatigue) which could be anything, not least of all stress and anxiety itself. And even if it's not anxiety (which should be all anxious people's first port of call!), you have a whole raft of benign things like common viruses, vitamin deficiencies and the old "medically unexplained symptoms", all of which are orders of magnitude more likely than any nasty rare disease.

But I know all too well what it's like for your mind to fixate on the improbable and even near impossible, and hopefully you're not waiting too long for your results, which even the most irresponsible gambler wouldn't bet on being the thing you're scared of.