Jackie Macdonald was first diagnosed with myeloma, an incurable form of blood cancer, in 2014 after she went to the doctor with what seemed to be a fairly normal basket of symptoms.
“It started with me having really swollen legs but I was walking 80 miles a week so I thought it was the walking. I had also been to the doctor with what I thought was UTI – it just felt uncomfortable,” Macdonald said.
She was training for the Caledonian challenge at the time and the strenuous exercise meant that her symptoms were showing up “in a more dramatic way”, making it difficult to diagnose. However, the 58-year-old persisted and eventually got a diagnosis of myeloma and AL amyloidosis when visiting another GP at the practice a couple of months later.
