48-year-old Dene Firth in the United Kingdom visited a doctor in 2019 after he had extreme night sweats and a swollen foot. Dene lived with his wife and two children and worked as a property clerk with South Yorkshire Police when one day he started experiencing night sweats and also developed a swollen foot. On visiting a physiotherapist, he was told to visit a general practitioner who said that he was suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia.
“The physiotherapist realised immediately this wasn’t a problem that she could do something about and sent him to his GP. The GP gave Dene a blood test on September 4 2019, and by that afternoon he was in Sheffield’s Hallamshire Teaching Hospital with a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia," Firth’s wife Diane said.
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Even though the news came as a shock to many, Dene was sure that his condition could be cured. His wife explained,
“Dene was quite healthy – he was a football coach for his son’s team. We were in disbelief, and very frightened. But despite our fear of the future, we remained hopeful it could be cured."
Soon, the 48-year-old began with his chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Diane was searching for a stem cell donor for a stem cell transplant.
However, a prerequisite for the transplant is that the patient must have less than five per cent cancerous cells in his body.
On founding the donor it was discovered that Dene still had more than 40 per cent cancerous cells in his body, meaning the stem cell transplant could not go ahead.
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Even though he did go to his third round of chemotherapy, his chances of survival were bleak and he eventually died on July 9, 2020 at the age of 48.
Location: New Delhi, India