Luke & Tawna's Story

Luke and Lizzie live in London with their baby son, Angus. It is no secret that the last couple of years have been incredibly challenging for most. Luke and Lizzie however, have endured difficulties of their own. Halfway through 2020, Luke was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML). This is the story of Luke's diagnosis, his treatment, and the bone marrow donation which saved his life. 

Luke originally went to his doctor after experiencing shortness of breath going up stairs. For a marathon runner and triathlete, this was unusual to him. After one abnormal blood test, Luke was given a subsequent test of his bone marrow, which lead to the diagnosis of AML on 3 July. Within several days Luke was being treated in London with chemotherapy.  

Luke is 1 of 4 children. His family lives in Sydney, and they found it very difficult to be apart during his diagnosis and treatment. The first round of chemotherapy was particularly difficult. Firstly because it was all very new and the shock of the diagnosis was ever-present. However, it was also made difficult by a few complications such as appendicitis which caused Luke to have very high fevers for long periods of time. The doctors said after his first round that it should not get much worse than that, and he felt encouraged by this. Luke kept in touch with his family during this time mainly via video calls. Billy and Luke played PlayStation online when Luke was feeling well, but during the tough times, Luke mainly just spoke to his parents, Deanne and Steve. They, along with Lizzie, provided Luke with immense support because COVID and Luke’s immune vulnerabilities limited the amount of visitors he could have. 

The second round of chemotherapy was less complicated and was also more successful. Things were looking better at this point and Luke was recommended for a bone marrow transplant with his siblings being the projected donors. Tawna, Charlotte and Billy were all tested and Tawna was a match. Once Luke’s treatment team knew there was a sibling match and Luke was feeling relatively well, Luke, Lizzie and Angus moved back to Sydney to quarantine for 2 weeks. Luke said he learned some useful things in quarantine like how to cook scrambled eggs in a microwave. 

Tawna underwent some medical screening for about 3 weeks and passed with flying colours. She was told that some of the viruses she had in the past could affect Luke. Tawna was incredibly excited to be involved in a process that might help her brother. However she also described the process as daunting. Daunting because of the reliance on something that belonged to her, her stem cells, but also because of their potential to cause further harm. She then had a series of injections which help develop extra stem cells for harvesting. This process means that you can take the “bone marrow” cells out of the blood without going into the bone. The only side effect that Tawna experienced was some back pain which she said was manageable, and for which she did not need painkillers. This was a result of her bones working harder to make more blood cells than she would normally need. Tawna acknowledges that the process was a lot less scary than she expected, particularly because there was no surgery involved.

Tawna donated her stem cells on December 15, 2020. It was relatively painless despite being a bit uncomfortable. It was similar to the process of donating plasma, however it took quite a long time. Tawna spent about 7 hours in the chair and also had to come in the day after for the same amount of time to harvest more cells. This is because Tawna and Luke are different in size, hence Tawna had a larger job ahead of her. She mentioned that one person next to her was only in the chair for 3 hours. Tawna’s donation was closer to 14 hours over both days. Tawna said her favourite part was walking the cells over to the hospital and giving them to Luke.

The Christmas period was tough for Luke because the “preparatory chemotherapy” he had before the transplant had taken its toll. Despite the frequent deliveries of ice-cream from Luke’s family, the road to recover in the short term was very tough. Billy stayed with Luke for Christmas Eve and left at about 11pm after Luke went to sleep. However, Luke woke up not long after and described this as one of his worst nights. In the morning, on Christmas Day, Tawna and Billy came into Luke’s room in speedos and this cheered him up a bit. Luke believes he was infused with about 20L of blood during his treatment and is incredibly thankful to all the people who roll their sleeves up and donate because these people literally helped save his life. 

Luke, Lizzie and Gus are now back in London. Both are working again, and Gus is enjoying daycare. Charlotte now lives in Sydney along with Tawna and their parents, Deanne and Steve. Billy lives in Adelaide and studies Medicine at Flinders University. He has assisted AMM with their bone marrow donation drive and will be working with Strength to Give as an Ambassador, helping to organise events and recruit donors.