Sticky Blood!!

My Dad had always said that he had funny blood, during his time in the RAF during the war, he reckoned that they had to use a different stamp to all the others in the same line on his dog-tags...I am not sure what his blood type was, but he did have "Sticky Blood". Dad had had a couple of heart attacks, suffered with angina and then had a stroke, it was whilst he was getting his pace maker fitted that they discovered that his blood was positive for Sticky Blood. It was described to him as a sort of leukemia that makes his blood too thick and hence he got heart and stroke problems???? To be honest, I never investigated what Sticky Blood was at the time, Dad was a smoker and from what he was saying, this condition was similar to having high cholesterol or a lifestyle choice related problem....

My Dad lived down in Worcestershire, which is where I am from originally and towards the back end of his life when he was very ill, he relied heavily on my sisters (still living locally) to support him emotionally. They got involved with how he was and the medications he was taking...living over a 100 miles away, working nearly full time and with 2 small children, I was only able to see him a few times a year.

Dad often fell asleep when we were kids during the evenings, he suffered with headaches a lot, but I put it down to the stress of being the breadwinner and having 5 children and a wife to support.. My Mum died when I was 16, so the last 3 years that I was at home until I went to Uni, it was just me and Dad...on the whole we got on ok and he gave me loads of breathing space as I helped him in the house a lot. He had a few instances of getting nose bleeds that wouldn't stop bleeding, not feeling well enough to go places, sporadic aches and pains and other problems...I put it down to Dad's advancing years.

He had his first heart attack during the first week that I went to Uni!! He recovered quickly, carried on smoking and eating lard and hoped for the best... he then had other problems, including a stroke and COPD was diagnosed too. He carried on smoking and eating what he wanted, was diagnosed with diabetes, had another heart attack and was then put on warfarin and aspirin to thin his blood. The sticky blood diagnosis was never really investigated by anyone in the family, as I said, we put it down to Dad's lifestyle...

He died a horrible death in a nursing home that he never wanted to go into and he died with heart failure in the end, but by god he fought the good fight to the bitter end. I regret that I wasn't with him at the end, but I had said my goodbyes the day before he went.

When I was searching the Internet that Christmas of 2007 for my own diagnosis, I looked at the symptoms for Lupus, some of them matched, but not all of them, there was a hyperlink to Antiphospholipid Syndrome/Hughes Syndrome and I felt my symptoms were far more like this, then I discovered.... APS, Hughes, Antiphospholipid Syndrome...also known as Sticky Blood....thanks Dad, we got there in the end!!

I really do regret not doing more investigation into my Dad's Sticky Blood at the time, it would have given me more understanding of his symptoms, his fears and his pain. It would have also given me someone to talk to about my own symptoms...

That time when Dad said his arm hurt too much to hold my new born son and I was upset, even more upset when my Dad had completely forgotten that he had had a bad arm a week later!!?? Those transient aches and pains are a really bummer... and make you feel like you are going mad!!

I knew what my diagnosis was from reading the Internet that Christmas night...I just had to get a doctor to believed me now.....