Nurse, 22, lands a job at the same hospital which cured her cancer

Nurse, 22, lands a job at the same hospital where she was treated for rare leukaemia which nearly killed her as a teenager

• Brooke Evans, from Redditch in Worcestershire, is in remission from her cancer
• She now works at the hospital in Birmingham where she was treated in 2013
• Miss Evans hopes her experience will help her to relate to her patients 

A newly-qualified nurse has started working at the same hospital where she thought she would die of a rare form of leukaemia five years ago.

Brooke Evans, from Redditch in Worcestershire, needed eight months of chemotherapy to recover from lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was 17 in 2013.

She was treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and now has a job on the same ward as a haematology nurse, treating other people with the disease.

Now in remission herself, Miss Evans hopes her experience will help her relate to her patients better and give them hope of recovery.

Brooke Evans was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was 17 in 2013 and now has a job as a nurse at the hospital where she had chemotherapy

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Miss Evans recovered from her own cancer after eight months of gruelling treatment and is currently in remission.

Inspired by her experience as a patient, the 22-year-old recently qualified as a nurse after beginning her studies at the University of Worcester in 2015.

Miss Evans said: ‘I can have lot of empathy and sympathy with my patients because I understand on a personal level what they’re going through.

‘I hope that if I tell patients my story it’ll inspire them and keep them going. I hope they realise that it’s not all bad.

‘There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it, I just think about how lucky I am.’ 

Miss Evans said she thought she was going to die when she had lymphoblastic leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, but she is now in remission and has completed a degree and landed a job since

Miss Evans needed eight months of chemotherapy and had to take a year off school because of her illness, meaning she missed out on going to university when all her friends went

Miss Evans had to take a year off school to have her treatment and said she missed out because her friends were starting university but she was too ill.

‘It was hard because all my friends who’d I’d gone to school with were at university,’ she said.

‘I came across as a troublesome teenager who was in denial about what has happening.’

Lymphoblastic leukaemia is a rare type of cancer and only affects around 810 people in the UK each year.

The disease causes bone marrow to release white blood cells into the body too soon, reducing the number of healthy red blood cells and making people weak. 

But she soon managed to complete her nursing degree and landed a job working among the same people who saved her life less than five years earlier. 

It was that experience of facing the possibility of dying herself – and she did believe she would die – which motivated her to become a nurse.   

And the 22-year-old was overwhelmed by emotion before she was due to go in to start her first shift.

Miss Evans said: ‘The hospital were amazing. The nurses and doctors tried their absolute best.

‘That’s why I decided to work there, because I saw what they were doing first-hand.

Miss Evans, who now works as a haematology nurse on the same ward she was treated on, hopes her own experience of the deadly disease will help her relate to other patients and give them hope for their recovery

Miss Evans (pictured when she was having cancer treatment five years ago) says she cried the night before her first shift because she was so overwhelmed with emotion before going back to where she had believed she would die as a teenager

‘I cried the night before my first shift. It was a mixture of emotions to do with my past because at one point I didn’t know if I’d get here.

‘I thought I was going to die so putting on my uniform ready to go work was a big deal.’

Miss Evans, who has only been working in the hospital full-time for a week, said she’s already bumped into a few familiar faces.

She added: ‘I’m working with the same doctors that treated me and working with patients who have the same condition.

‘At first it was weird. Sometimes i feel a little bit embarrassed.

‘But it’s quite funny now to see them again, and they’re really happy to see that I’ve gone full circle.’

WHAT IS ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LYMPHOMA? 

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a type of blood cancer that starts from young white blood cells in the bone marrow.

There are around 810 new cases in the UK every year. In the US, ALL affects approximately 1.7 adults per 100,000. 

Anyone can develop ALL, however, it mainly affects younger people.

Many ALL symptoms are vague and flu-like, such as: 

• General weakness
• Fatigue
• Fever
• Frequent infections
• Bruising or bleeding easily, including nosebleeds, heavy periods and blood in the urine or faeces
• Unexplained weight loss
• Bone or joint pain 
• Breathlessness
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Feeling full
• Paler skin than normal

Risks for developing ALL include exposure to radiation, smoking, being overweight and having a weak immune system.

Research suggests being breastfed and exposed to childhood infections may reduce a person’s risk.

The main ALL treatment is chemotherapy. Patients may also have radiotherapy, steroids or bone marrow transplants.

Source: Cancer Research UK

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