Hale mum with rare type of blood cancer wants to raise awareness

A Hale business owner and mum-of-one has opened up about living with a rare blood cancer to help raise awareness during Blood Cancer Awareness Month in September.

Faye Bala, 38, has been living with Essential Thrombocythaemia (ET), a type of blood cancer that affects the bone marrow, since she was 16.

But it’s only been in the last year that she’s started talking openly about this with friends and clients at her beauty salon.

Faye says her posts and videos have not only had a great response but have helped her come to terms with her diagnosis.

Faye, who grew up in Scotland before moving to Greater Manchester, realised something was not quite right as a schoolgirl in Aberdeen.

She used to have horrendous headaches which were so severe that she felt exhausted and needed to lie down every day as soon as she got home from school.

Initially, she was given glasses, but the problem persisted until one day she collapsed at home.

Blood tests revealed she had a high number of blood cells called platelets.

Faye said: "When I was 16, I was diagnosed with a blood disorder.

"At the time my doctor in Aberdeen told me not to Google it as it might scare me and that it had connections with cancer.

"Since then, the classification has changed and my blood disorder - known as Essential Thrombocythaemia (ET) - is now classified as a type of blood cancer."

Faye was put on Hydroxycarbamide – a mild oral chemotherapy – for a short time to get her platelets back down.

After this Faye was moved onto aspirin and managed without the chemotherapy drug for years.

In 2018 she became pregnant with daughter Olive and was still managing well when she went through her pregnancy.

However, a few years later, after Olive was born, she began to get