Dubai: Mahmoud Ebrahim will never forget those nine days in February 2012 when he battled with what he thought was just simple cold. But when he was left desperately gasping for air and losing 40 kilogrammes in the process, he became suspicious.
“I just stayed at home for about three of four days because I was suffering from cold and flu. After that, I couldn’t breathe properly anymore, even when I try to open my mouth. That’s when I thought that something was wrong,” Ebrahim, 29, told Gulf News on the sidelines of the first Patient Support Group Meeting held at JW Marriott Marquis Hotel on Saturday.
Doctors at Tawam Hospital diagnosed the Egyptian expatriate with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) in February 2012. CML is a blood cancer where the body produces white blood cells (WBC) — the defense mechanism or police force of the body — more than red blood cells.
Although many would think having more police force in the body is good, in CML patients, the WBC are actually “sick” cells and therefore cannot fight off infection.
Ebrahim at the time had cold, was feverish, was “totally tired and breathless, had constant abdominal pain.”
His weight also abruptly dropped from 135kg to 95kg in just nine days.
“For the first four days, I couldn’t eat [solids] but I could drink juice and water. For the next five days, I couldn’t drink anything, not even water. I stayed for five days without eating or drinking anything because at that time my spleen became very big,” recounted Ebrahim, whose mother, a breast-cancer patient, passed away in January last year.
CML occurs in one to two out of every 100,000 people every year, with men more prone to developing it than women. In the UAE, there are currently no known estimates of CML’s prevalence.
CML is caused by a gene mutation and the only known risk factor as yet is continuous exposure to radiation. It is not hereditary. Ebrahim said he is grateful for having discovered his condition early. He started treatment right away and has so far lived a normal life, except for a few setbacks.
“The medication is very strong for the stomach that’s why I’m suffering because of too much pain in the abdomen. Also, the only difference now is it’s easy for me to contract infection. So, whenever I am sitting at an enclosed area, I try to distance myself from people [who may be sick]. But other than that, my life is normal.”
Ebrahim, who is a sales representative at a pharmaceutical company in the UAE, said he gets his treatment for free, which in CML cases is lifelong.
Ebrahim cautioned residents who exhibit symptoms of CML to not dismiss it out rightly before it’s gets too late.
“My message for people out there, especially for Arabs, because we Arabs when we notice a small problem in our bodies, we tend to not to care. We tend to self-medicate. As opposed to, for example, Europeans, if anything is wrong, they go to the doctor right away and start medication.”
