Morgan Paine’s – A Garmin That Saved My Life
In this episode of Cure Leukaemia’s Let’s Talk Blood Cancer: The Patients’ Podcast, host Adam Joyce sits down with Cure Leukaemia Ambassador Morgan Paine. Morgan reflects on being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) at the age of 19 and how changes in his watch metrics prompted him to get a blood test.
Morgan’s Journey
Back in 2019, Morgan began to notice his heart rate rise on his Garmin watch, with his heart rate rising from 44 resting rate to 66. Going into his final year of university at the time, Morgan queried whether this jump was due to stress from his workload.
Within the next three weeks, Morgan began to notice different symptoms, such as different skin colouring, and feeling out of breath while walking to the train. The final straw was when Morgan felt he was about to faint after running the train.
After going to the doctor for a blood test in the afternoon, Morgan’s mum and dad received a call in the middle of the night, and were asked to “make sure your son is still breathing”. Morgan’s parents were then asked to take him to the Wolverhampton hospital immediately. After arriving at the hospital, Morgan was told he had leukaemia.
From the morning after being told about his diagnosis, Morgan told his Dad, “Leukaemia won’t kill me, we are going to fight it” – a mindset that he upheld throughout his treatment. Morgan recounts that “kidding his brain to be positive” helped him do some amazing things.
From hearing about his diagnosis, Morgan wanted to know everything. He felt that understanding his treatment course would help him to know what to do to make sure it worked, and whatever he was told he had to do, he would do it.
A month after Morgan was diagnosed, he had air outside his lungs, with the only way to treat him being to put him into a coma. Morgan’s parents told him he had “a 10% chance and to say their last goodbye.” After being in a coma for five days, Morgan woke up on Christmas morning.
Morgan speaks about the lasting effects of his diagnosis and how that affected him being able to return to normalcy, especially when spending a week each month going through treatment. Morgan’s goal throughout was to get himself back fit enough to deal with any treatment.
Family
The afternoon after finishing chemotherapy, Morgan took on Cure Leukaemia’s London 2 Paris with his dad. Finishing by leading 200 cyclists into Paris on Father’s Day alongside dad, who had been by his side throughout his treatment.
Morgan speaks about the importance of the support received by this family during his diagnosis and treatment, and the detrimental effect that it had on them. To this day, the first question asked of his family is “How’s Morgan?”
Looking Forward
Morgan advocates for allowing himself time to heal from the trauma that he has endured and now wants to plan for the future and embrace all of his experiences fully. Morgan is now an ambassador for Cure Leukaemia and has done some amazing work, resulting in his efforts raising £37,000 for the charity.
Watch the incredible episode below: