JIM:

When I went to see my primary doctor, and she was feeling my stomach, she says, “Your spleen is enlarged. I’m going to recommend that you get, go to an oncologist.” So, we went, and then the oncologist was giving me a complete physical, and he goes, “Yes, you’re definitely enlarged in the spleen. “

And they took a blood test and he says, “You have CLL.” And I go, “What’s that?” “It’s leukemia.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. He said what we generally do is just watch it for a while until he took a blood test, and he says, “You’ve got a problem. We’ve got to start you right now in treatment.” He says, “’cause I expect in two months you will be symptomatic.”

He says you’ve had this for about six or seven years. Apparently, it’s something that goes totally unnoticed until it’s too late. And it was almost too late.

I didn’t think I was experiencing any symptoms at all, but my wife reminds me of how tired I used to get.

BECKY:

When Jim was first diagnosed with CLL, I had only been retired about three months, so I hadn’t been home with him very much and then all of a sudden I noticed that when he was watching TV he was falling asleep, and he just wasn’t hungry like he had been. And that made me really concerned to how he was doing, because he just didn’t have energy.

JIM:

My doctor told me there was a clinical study with a drug called CALQUENCE. He says, “It’s a clinical study that has really helped people.” I was really interested because it was going to help me, but I’m also interested in helping other people.

BECKY:

The doctor told us that he had very good success with the treatment, and that he had other patients that were doing very well on it and he would like to see how Jim did. There was no guarantees, but this would be the first line of treatment. And so, Jim took two pills a day. And, he went through the infusions.

JIM:

I’m still on the pills three years later. My doctor did talk to me about side effects. He says some people have experienced vomiting. Some people have experienced soreness. I experienced one side…

…effect from this whole thing. I bruise easily. It’s a part of the side effect of the medication.

Well, since I’ve been on the CALQUENCE, my life has changed completely. I didn’t realize it before that I was slowing down, slowing down – you don’t realize it when that’s happening to you. Well, once you come out of that and you get nothing but energy…

…you wake up in the morning and you feel like getting up instead of staying in bed and sleeping – it’s, it’s really eye-opening.

BECKY:

Jim being on CALQUENCE has meant to me that we play cards and we take trips and he has energy to go hiking. In fact, we try to get in 10,000 steps a day. We don’t always make it, but we make the effort.

JIM:

My message to other CLL patients is don’t give up. I mean it, it’s no such thing as it’s over. You talk to your doctor, pay attention to it and ask questions. Look up on the internet, find out what it is you’re dealing with – that’s what we had to do. We had to find out what it was we were dealing with. And then take positive action.