Hi everyone,

In November 2015, I was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia - APML.

I'll start off by briefly 'attempting' to explain a little bit about APML;

* In APML, immature white blood cells accumulate in the bone marrow causing a decreased number of normal white blood cells in the blood and reduces production of other cells like red blood cells and platelets

* There is no known reason why people get APML

* There are less than 100 cases of APML diagnosed in Australia each year

* APML was once considered to be one of the most fatal forms of leukemia with patients experiencing an early hemorrhagic death

* Left untreated, patients would experience a median survival of less than a week

* Initial treatments boosted the median survival rate to 3.5 weeks and up to 6 years for patients responding to treatment

* In 1985, a drug known as All-Trans Retinoic Acid (ATRA) was clinically introduced to treat APML

* Although ATRA increased remission rates, frequent relapses were occurring

* In the 1990's, a chemotherapy treatment consisting of Arsenic Trioxide was introduced and this combined with the ATRA treatment, resulted in APML to becoming one of the most curable forms of cancer

* The 'cure' rate of APML is now at approximately 90%

My Story:

In early November 2015 I started feeling not quite right. I was running out of energy, getting short of breath, my gums started bleeding and I had an unexplained bruise down the left side of my upper body. Looking back now, yep, it all points towards leukemia, but at the time, the bleeding gums were written off as gum disease during three visits to the dentist, the fatigue was due to not eating thanks to the bleeding gums and the bruise was put down to a cricket incident which I obviously couldn't recall. 

After an awesome boys night out seeing Def Leppard, I struggled to walk back to the train station which finally made me get off may ass and go and see my GP. The following morning, I was sent off for blood tests and two hours later, I was admitted into hospital with a suspected diagnosis of leukemia. 

At the time, my wife Kathryn was 20 weeks pregnant with our first child!  

Lying in a triage area with a 'suspected' diagnosis comes with so many uncertainties about the future and I hope no family or friend ever has to experience this.

Upon the confirmation of having leukemia and commencing treatment, my medical team had issues trying to restore the clotting of my blood. For three days during this period, I feared that I was going to bleed out internally and was not going to be around for the birth of my daughter. This still upsets me. 

Thankfully, after the transfusions of over a hundred blood products over the next week, my blood levels became stable and I was on track to a healthy recovery.

The rest is now history.

Why I am raising money:

In Australia, every day 35 people will be diagnosed with a blood cancer. I am one of the lucky ones for whom treatment was swift and effective. I am so grateful that researchers were able to discover the ATRA and Arsenic Trioxide combo to treat me.

These successful results of both biological and clinical research does not occur without funding and there are many forms of blood cancer where the treatment process is not as simple.

Hopefully scientists can discover more effective ways to treat blood cancer.

How I am raising money:

Upon commencing treatment, I suffered severe pain in my hips, knees and ankles. It basically felt like my bones were going to explode. The pain was so intense that the palliative care team were called in and I was attached to a morphine driver for a week. 

In an attempt to raise some money for The Leukaemia Foundation of Australia, I'm going to put myself in a fraction of that pain, so along with my great mates, Peter and Cliff, I will be stomping over 7000 steps of the MCG. I have not trained for this so it's going to hurt and hurt for days after the event.

In doing this, I am hoping to raise at least $1000 for The Leukaemia Foundation.