EXCLUSIVE: To mark Blood Cancer Awareness Month, OK! speaks to one woman who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia after heading to a lip filler appointment

Edita was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia after going to get her lips done (Image: Supplied)

 

When Edita Jucaite attended her lip filler appointment earlier this year, she couldn’t have predicted how things would have turned out. Having undergone the aesthetic treatment in the past with no issues, what happened in May 2023 came as a complete surprise. In fact, it was because of her appointment that she was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

“I agreed to be a model for my dentist colleague. I’d had lip filler before like three times, so when the day came I was all happy and thought I’d be all good for my holiday because I was about to go to Mauritius,” she tells OK! . “But when I was injected with the lip filler, my lip bloomed up and bruised. The dentist was shocked and the other dentist who was overseeing her hadn’t seen this happen for the 20 years she’d been training.”

Edita’s lips swelled and bruised up immediately, causing concern from her dentist (Image: Supplied)
As a result, 35 year old Edita was encouraged to seek medical advice – though at first she wasn’t too concerned about her symptoms. While her lip began to bruise both inside and out, after three days the swelling went down, though the dental nurse began to read into the symptoms she’d been experiencing.

In addition to bruising easily, she’d been losing weight without trying, so she booked an appointment with her GP. “I joked with my GP that the internet said I had leukaemia and that it was impossible,” she explains.

However, after her morning appointment with the GP she received a blood test and everything changed. “I went for the appointment, and that same day they called me and said that I needed to go to the hospital for more treatments and tests. I obviously burst into tears and said ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’,” she says.

The bruising, which went down in around three days, prompted Edita to book a GP appointment (Image: Supplied)
“I was at work and my dentist had to cancel their patient so I felt really bad. At first I thought they’d made a mistake or something.”

After meeting the consultant, Edita was told what CML was and she began receiving chemotherapy tablets straightaway, though had to visit the hospital each day for a week to ensure that her blood count was coming down – where her white blood cells should’ve been at around 10, they were initially at around the 250 mark.

“I met the consultant who explained what CML was and put me at ease that I wasn’t going to die, that everything was under control and I just needed to take tablets for life,” she explains. “After a week I was prescribed my medication, which is Imatinib, and I got back to work. I had to cancel my holiday but I ended up going in September which was so nice. It was a holiday needed.”

Edita will be on medication for the rest of her life (Image: Supplied)
As a result, if it wasn’t for her lip filler appointment, Edita thinks it would have take longer for her to be diagnosed with CML.

“I wasn’t even that concerned with the weight loss. One of my colleagues had a sister who passed away from cancer, and she noticed that I was losing weight, and she kept me nagging me to get it checked out, but I didn’t,” she admits.

“Getting a diagnosis probably would have taken a bit longer. I noticed the bruising for about two months but every time I thought of booking an appointment, it was hard fitting it around my routine so I put it off. I think it would have taken longer time before I booked something and it could have gotten worse.”

Edita is encouraging others to know the symptoms of blood cancer (Image: Supplied)

Know the symptoms

September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month and leading charities Leukaemia UK and Leukaemia Care join forces every year for the Spot Leukaemia campaign which aims to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of leukaemia.

The main symptoms of leukaemia are fatigue, unusual bruising or bleeding and repeated infections. Symptoms can also include fever/chills, night sweats, rapid weight loss, painful bones and lumps in the neck or armpit.

If anyone has any concerns about the symptoms they are experiencing, they should visit their GP and ask for a full blood count test within 48 hours of their appointment to confirm or rule out leukaemia. An earlier diagnosis can mean that, if treatment is needed, it is likely to be more effective.