Areti

Hi, I'm Areti.

I'm a pharmacist and paediatric cancer survivor. 13 years ago I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, which radically changed my life.

My treatments had to start as soon as possible and so a catheter was placed near the heart so that I could receive the treatment every day. About halfway through the treatments I developed a high fever, which at first seemed like a normal toxicity, but it soon became an uncontrollable situation for doctors which brought great concern. After tests, they found an extremely resistant bacterium called Klebsiella which normally lives in the intestine.

It is one of the most deadly pathogens in hospital-acquired infections.

Klebsiella cannot be fought with most of the antibiotics that were available at the time, which unfortunately is still true today. The decision was to temporarily stop my chemotherapy and focus on the bacterium. This was very difficult as it compromised the fight against leukaemia, while also being unsure about the possibilities of treating the infection. I remember the day we were told that the bacteria had colonised the catheter and it had to come out. It was a painful decision, since we are talking about a surgery and the catheter was vital for me to receive daily food and treatments.

Because of the severity of the infection, I had to go into solitary confinement. The doctors and nurses could only enter my room with strong orders and I could no longer hug or touch my mother who had been with me the whole time. I can say with certainty that these were my worst moments throughout my stay at the clinic. I was convinced that I could handle the chemotherapy, which I no longer believed I could fight off the infection. After the catheter was removed, doctors continued to administer the latest generation of antibiotics, which eventually worked. He eventually beat the infection and beat the cancer. And today I am enjoying my life in Athens. I am extremely grateful that I have been able to overcome this but I am so aware that my own success story is very close to those who did not survive. We must all do everything we can to keep antibiotics working. We must use them wisely and only when they are needed, and improve hospital hygiene and control.