Blood cancer and starting a family?
Yesterday I faced a peculiar situation where a 28 year old male patient with blood cancer on oral chemotherapy came for a routine 4 monthly visit to our OPD at Lotus hospital. He was fine and doing well. His blood cancer (chronic myeloid leukemia) was under control and he was leading a normal life. He use to visit with his father but expectedly at his age he was accompanied by a masked young lady! After our routine examination and advice, the lady asked the patient to go and wanted to speak to me in private. With my past experience I figured out the reason.
“Sir, I am his girlfriend for last 8 months and planning to marry him” ….in came the expected question in “masked” voice with slight fear in her expressive eyes. It is surprising how our eyes tell us everything in spite of our masks now a days!
My patient who has been following with me since last 3 years has a common type of “slow” growing blood cancer which now a days is considered “cured” in 95% of patients. He was taking a single tablet called imatinib without any side effects. His molecular test (which we do every 6 months to make sure the blood cancer is not detectable) showed that his cancer was not detectable.
How do I counsel this young lady? I said he has a 95% chance of living a normal life. His capacity to father their child is 100%. He will need to take this tablet lifelong. Anyone of us can be diagnosed with an illness after marriage also! Well there is an inherent risk that he may be in 5% of the patients in whom the disease can turn into aggressive acute leukemia. Her parents have a valid reason to say” No”. This young girl was confused and I could not be biased towards my patient of 3 years and tell wrong facts to be the bride! “Google” plays a spoil sport in such matters and many in the young generation prefer “googled information” rather than experts! So I asked her to think and come back to me after few days as I told her she can marry my patient.
I hope my 19 years of experience triumphs over 1.3 lakh google pages! In my experience 80% it is yes from a girl’s side in such matters if the “guy” is well settled and financially sound and the opposite is true if my patient is a girl (only 20% chance) again sad state of affairs! The other side of the coin some other time. Have a great day today!
Dr Pritesh Junagade
August 2023
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