Hi everyone,

I'm 44, female and until a few weeks ago,  thought I was in relatively good health. That's when I went for my regular blood donation and discovered I was mildly anaemic. I was told to see my GP, who arranged for me to have a full blood panel and some other tests. A week later he phoned to say that my haemoglobin was low but my iron, B12, etc., were normal, and so I needed to have more tests to figure out the cause. When I went to the surgery  yesterday,  I snuck a look at the screen to see which tests he had ordered, and then - although I knew it wasn't a good idea- I Googled them. One was a reticulocyte count, which it seems can be ordered for various reasons,  but the other two were serum protein electrophoresis and urine protein electrophoresis.  Everything I found suggested there was only one reason for ordering those tests: suspicion of myeloma. 

That felt like being kicked in the gut. A friend died of myeloma a few years ago,  so I know what a dreadful form of cancer it is. I keep telling myself that it's just one of several possibilities and that it's rare in people my age, but a little voice in the back of my head keeps saying,  "That *must* be it, why else would the doctor test for it?" I'm quite scared but am trying to put on a brave face for my husband,  and don't really have anyone I can talk to about this. Thanks for letting me vent.