Me and Jack met by chance, and fell in love instantly. He was always so strong and capable, and completely whisked me off my feet.

But at the end of May 2026, Jack started to get sick. He had a cold that wasn’t going away, and a persistent cough. He was having these uncontrollable night sweats, and was bruised all over, so we went to the GP.

Jack (after having relayed all this information), was diagnosed with a chest infection, and put on antibiotics. He was told not to worry about the bruising, as it was often an accompaniment of having an infection and being under the weather.

However, he kept getting sicker. His cough got worse and worse, and he hadn’t been able to sleep in days. But, being an otherwise fit and healthy man, he was still able to go to work (even if it meant that he couldn’t do anything else for the rest of the day). This is when his vision started to deteriorate. He had growing patches of vision loss in one eye.

We decided the best course of action would be to cal 111, who sent us to A&E, who sent us to another eye specialist. Nobody thought to investigate the bruising, the tachycardia, the night sweats - for them, a chest infection was enough of a diagnosis.

At the eye specialist, I had a sinking feeling in my chest. I knew there was something wrong with Jack, but none of the doctors seemed overly concerned, and I didn’t want to frighten him. They examined his eyes and told him to come back on Monday, as he slight haemorrhaging due to extended and violent coughing - but again, it was nothing to worry about. He was sent home.

A few hours later, Jack threw up mouthfuls of blood. Luckily, I was home with him, so I called 999, and he was whisked away to urgent care. Even there, it was believed that he had a chest infection that had progressed - they all believed it to be sepsis. Luckily, one of the doctors enquired about his bruising. We explained that it had been dismissed, but she was adamant that it shouldn’t have been. Her brother had shown very similar symptoms, and ended up having leukaemia. They took some more blood tests from Jack, which were urgently sent off to a haematology specialist who was on call.

Jack’s results finally came in - his white blood cell count was at 538. In the average sick person, it’s around 11-14. We were told that if he had not been taken into hospital when he was, he very well could be dead by now. He was in critical condition, and was lucky to be alive.

The consistent lack of testing his bloods from multiple medical professionals could’ve cost my boyfriend his life at 21 years old. Although he didn’t outwardly present as being in critical condition, he was unwell, and he did have textbook symptoms of blood cancer that were explained away as "‘nothing to worry about’.

We are pushing for increased visibility of leukaemia in young people, and increased blood testing at all medical stages.

His blood counted. Your Blood Counts.

-Slater + Jack