Sudden chest pain leads to Seema Haider diagnosed with rare cancer, T cell prolymphocytic leukaemia

An Australian woman has opened up about her battle with one of the world’s rarest cancers after being rushed to hospital with chest pain.

Seema Haider, 47, was having a normal Monday afternoon in October and was on her way to her brother’s house when she had crippling chest pain.

After several trips to the hospital, including emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen, Ms. Haider was diagnosed with T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL).

The aggressive and incurable form of cancer is so rare that she is the only person in Australia to have it.

Her brother Saeed Haider, 40, told Daily Mail Australia that Seema, who rarely got sick, had seemed lethargic and low on energy in the months before her diagnosis, but did not suspect anything major was wrong.

He said his sister’s ordeal began when she called him to say she had severe chest pain and was going to buy Nurofen.

Mrs. Haider went to her brother’s house every afternoon to spend time with her children.

But when that day came, she was in so much pain that she collapsed to the ground and was rushed to the hospital.

“When he came in from the back of the house, he was crying and screaming, saying ‘take me to the hospital, I think I’m having a heart attack,'” Haider said.

“So we did and they took her in and did some blood work that came back clean, so they sent her home.”

Two days later, Seema returned to the hospital for a bone marrow biopsy before returning the next day after collapsing in pain.

“On Thursday we went back to the hospital and the doctors were really worried about her and we had no idea what was going on,” Haider said.

‘I finally got in touch with one of the doctors and he was like ‘what’s going on?’ and they told me “look, I’m very worried about your sister, she has internal bleeding and we think her spleen is about to explode.”

Seema was rushed into emergency surgery after an ultrasound of her spleen showed it had ruptured and was slowly leaking blood.

Surgery succeeded in stopping the bleeding, but after she woke up from anesthesia, the bone marrow results came back with a diagnosis of T-PLL.

“My mother called me absolutely hysterical and said I had to come to the hospital now and told me that my sister had one of the rarest cancers in the world,” Haider said.

“I was floored and got all the doctor’s notes and started researching what I had and the more I read the more and more I just broke down.

“There’s just not much you can do and no survival stories or any way to really deal with it.”

“There are no survivors and no way to treat it and cancer is so rare they can’t even test it,” Haider said.

As the family learned more about the rare cancer, doctors informed them that she was the only person in Australia to have this type of cancer.

While there is no known treatment, chemotherapy arrived from the UK to try to treat it.

Haider said the family has tried to join groups, interact with doctors abroad and learn as much about cancer as possible.

But he said Australian doctors hardly know about it and don’t know how to treat it.

A final treatment option that was raised was the potential for a bone marrow transplant and Mr. Haider found a match for his sister.

Haider said that the day her sister heard they were a match, her face lit up and she was elated that there was hope for her.

But on the same day, Seema received the grim news that the tumors had spread to her spleen.

Now Seema and her family are waiting to find out if the bone marrow transfer is plausible while dealing with mounting bills and stress.

“Transplantation with my bone marrow is the only treatment option, it is the last hope,” Haider said.

Seema’s mother, once she learned of her daughter’s diagnosis, traveled from Canberra to care for her and spent her days at her bedside in hospital.

She knows cancer very well, fighting it herself on three different occasions.

Looking back on his sister’s diagnosis, Mr Haider said there were signs that something was not right, but no one could have imagined that the situation would be so dire.

“Thinking back, she kept getting sick for about a month before, which was really weird for her since she’s always been very healthy.

“She was lethargic, really low on energy and was a little bit off, but that’s hindsight.

“The worst part is there’s really nothing we can do, I feel helpless and because it’s so rare and the leukemia foundation barely knows it, it’s hard to stay positive, we just need some hope to hold on to “.

The average life expectancy once diagnosed with T-PLL is about 7 months, as it is usually resistant to conventional chemotherapy, according to the US government’s National Library of Medicine.

Describing his sister, Mr. Haider said that she is “the kindest, sweetest, most loving person I have ever met.”

“She has never done anything wrong to anyone and with a diagnosis like this one wonders why this could happen to someone like my sister,” Haider said.

‘We can’t change it, we just ask why my sister of all people.

“I’m her strength and I’m the backbone right now and she’s taking it very hard emotionally and I don’t think she can handle it much more, I can see that she’s emotionally broken.”

In addition to supporting their beloved family member, the Haider family says they want to raise awareness about rare forms of cancer, as they felt like they had no support throughout the entire trip.

“When someone goes through such a rare disease, there’s nothing to back it up and no real information about it, it’s like there’s no hope,” Haider said.

“So while Seema is the only one in Australia with this form of cancer, one day someone else could get it and I want them to know more about it so they don’t feel as alone as we do.”

A GoFundMe has been established to support the family as they face a difficult financial time.

Mr Haider said his mother has moved to Sydney while Ms Haider receives treatment.