Jerry Cowhig's Harrowing Experience

In a powerful bid to raise awareness about blood cancer, Jerry Cowhig, a resilient father from Bristol, is sharing his harrowing experience of a delayed diagnosis and the challenges he faced while living with an incurable form of the disease. After enduring a grueling year filled with debilitating chest and abdominal pain, Jerry was diagnosed with myeloma at the age of 68, a situation he believes could have been avoided with better awareness of the disease among healthcare professionals.

A Long Road to Diagnosis

Jerry's journey began in 2013 when he started experiencing intense, unexplained pain. Despite multiple visits to his general practitioner (GP) and a referral to a gastroenterologist, no clear answers emerged, leaving him in despair. “I was in London for a meeting, completely doubled over in pain, and I could barely make it back home,” he recalls. After a grueling year of suffering, scans finally revealed a plasmacytoma—a tumor that had ravaged his spine and caused significant vertebrae crumbling.

The Shocking Truth

In a shocking revelation, Jerry noted, "It had eaten away one vertebra completely." As someone who has spent his career in science publishing, writing extensively on medical topics, he was taken aback to discover he had never heard of myeloma before his diagnosis.

Ongoing Struggles

Tragically, Jerry’s struggles didn't end there. Shortly after starting treatment, he was hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism due to his medication and also faced shingles, highlighting the numerous challenges faced by cancer patients. Even ten years later, he grapples with long-term effects impacting his breathing and mobility, a constant reminder of the years lost to his undiagnosed pain.

Raising Awareness