A father’s excruciating back pain, which doctors ruled out as a herniated disc, actually ended up being cancer.
David Windle, from Camberwell, south London, at one point was unable to move because doing so would leave him in agony.
Despite numerous visits to his GP, osteopath and physiotherapist in December 2021 and January, the 46-year-old was still in disabling pain.
Windle assumed it was a nasty twinge attack he’d suffered years before at the gym, but was desperate for relief.
Twice, before his eventual myeloma diagnosis, he was even sent to the ER. Doctors determined that he probably had a herniated disc (when the soft tissue between the bones of the spine protrudes) that was pressing on the nerves.
David Windle, 46, who kept fit by going to the gym, running and cycling, dismissed his back pain for almost four years as a gym injury.
Mr Windle’s pain progressed to the point where he “would crawl on the floor from the bed and stay there”.
During the February 2022 semester, she needed her mother to help take care of her two children, Sylvie, 9, and Otis, 6.
Recalling the extent of their grief, Mr Windle, deputy headteacher, told MailOnline: ‘I was supposed to look after my children.’
“I had to call my mom and tell her I can’t move, you have to come take care of the kids.”
“I just got out of bed every day, crawled across the floor from the bed, and lay there.”
The deputy headteacher, pictured with his wife Emma Smith, 49, was told his back pain could be due to a slipped disc.
In February 2022, at the age of 44, Mr Windle was diagnosed with myeloma, a type of blood cancer that can affect the bones.
When Mr. Windle returned to work after the semester, he would “find an empty office to rest in” just so he could get through the day. Eventually, he found himself working from home propped up on cushions.
Her osteopath suggested having an MRI, although she couldn’t get one on the NHS.
Mr Windle, who paid to get one privately, said it ‘revealed what a disaster the next year and a half of my life was.’
Scans revealed that one of his vertebrae had disintegrated for no known cause, but he was told it could be cancer.
He said: ‘It was a terrible moment. He was sitting there and the world just disappeared around me.’
He called his wife Emma, ​​49, and explained that he needed to go to the hospital urgently.
Once in the ER, doctors looked at Mr. Windle’s MRIs and asked him if he had been in a car accident or if he had suffered any trauma. He said: “Everyone seemed a bit worried.”
He spent a fortnight in the hospital’s spinal unit, undergoing various scans and blood tests.
Recalling the day he discovered his diagnosis, Mr Windle said: “I had decided to go for a daily walk from my bed in the hospital ward, so I put on the lumbar support I was supposed to wear and set off for my circuit.” . of the hospital.
‘I was on the ninth floor, so I had gotten into the habit of going up and down stairs to keep fit.
‘But as I left the room I passed the space where the doctors and nurses gathered around the computers. I overheard a doctor chatting to a nurse and heard him say, “well, myeloma at 44, that’s a bit shit, isn’t it?”
“I just thought, ‘yeah, that sounds kind of shit’… ‘oh shit, I think they’re talking about me.’ So I kind of backed away, out of their sight, and I listened to them, I heard them talking about it.” .And I thought, okay, that’s me.’
Myeloma is an incurable blood cancer that affects around 6,000 Britons each year. It develops from plasma cells in the bone marrow (the spongy tissue inside large bones) that multiply uncontrollably.
Symptoms can be difficult to distinguish from other diseases, with pain and fatigue being telltale signs of the disease.
Mr Windle was diagnosed with a rare type of myeloma called “light chain” myeloma, which only affects about 20 per cent of blood cancer patients. Due to its characteristics, it can be even more difficult to detect.
For Mr Windle, cancer cells overwhelmed his bone marrow, meaning it did not produce the useful cells that make and regenerate bone, causing his vertebrae to disintegrate, doctors believe.
Windle added: “As soon as I started treatment everyone acted very quickly.
‘No one looks at a 44-year-old man who goes to the gym, runs, cycles and is fit. Nobody thinks that this is an incurable cancer.
‘The only problem is that people are not aware of myeloma or looking for it. I had to wait for my spine to collapse before having any kind of test done to reveal what it is.’
Once the results came back, he underwent a bone marrow biopsy, which involves sticking a needle into his pelvis.
Mr Windle, pictured with his back brace, was diagnosed with a rare type of myeloma called “light chain” myeloma, which only affects about 20 per cent of blood cancer patients.
Mr Windle said: ‘I had to wait six weeks to find out what stage my myeloma was at.
“But the good news I had in those first two months was that myeloma was officially standard.”
He received four months of chemotherapy and was given bortezomib, an anti-cancer drug, along with tablets of the steroid dexamethasone.
Windle added: “I was already emotionally all over the store and dexamethasone increases your emotions, I was crazy, I was really devastated and struggling.”
“I couldn’t be at home. I used to go out and walk down the street crying every night.”
But his dose of dexamethasone was eventually reduced, which helped relieve his symptoms and “made a big difference.”
Me Windle admits that his young children Sylvie, 9, and Otis, 6, pictured with friend James Harvey, still don’t really understand his myeloma diagnosis.
After a two-month break in medication, in November 2022, Windle underwent a stem cell transplant followed by two more months of the same treatment.
Mr Windle is now taking the anti-cancer drug lenalidomide and zoledronic acid, which can prevent bone problems caused by myeloma.
Recalling how he broke the news of his diagnosis to his family, he admits that his young children still don’t really understand it.
Windle, whose life is almost “back to what it was before,” said: “I told all my adult friends and family, but my kids still don’t really know.”
“At that moment they knew that he had back problems and that he had to go to the hospital. I was in the hospital for Sylvie’s seventh birthday, so it was silly.
Since then, Windle has found “hope” by creating a community of myeloma friends who also have blood cancer and have had it for 10 to 20 years. Here, he is pictured with his friends Chris Buckingham (left), James Harvey (centre) and Neil Gordon (right), who are currently running 1000km to raise funds for Myeloma UK.
‘The weeks I was diagnosed were the weeks I was supposed to be interviewing for a director position.
‘But I don’t go for that anymore, I don’t have the energy. I’m doing the best I can but I can’t continue, it’s a very demanding job.
‘The main problem is that you always wonder when he will return. It doesn’t disappear, it comes back for everyone.’
It can take months or years before the myeloma flares up again, but at some point patients relapse, according to Myeloma UK.
It comes after UK health chiefs this week approved Nexpovio, a cancer treatment designed for myeloma patients who have become resistant to other drugs.