TV presenter Simon Thomas reveals more details about his late wife’s diagnosis in a heartbreaking post
She passed away in November
Last November TV presenter Simon Thomas revealed the devastating news that his wife Gemma passed away, just three days after she was diagnosed with Acute Myloid Leukaemia. Now in a series of tweets he has revealed more details surrounding her diagnosis.
Yesterday Simon retweeted a post from Bloodwise, a blood cancer charity in the UK, saying, 'Acute Myeloid Leukaemia took my wife Gemma and Ethan’s Mum just before Christmas aged only 40 years and just three days after being diagnosed. This is so important. @bloodwise_uk'.
Less than an hour later he followed up his tweet revealing that Gemma had been sent home from the doctor's three times and 'told to rest'. He went on to say, 'We have to help and train our GP's and to detect #bloodcancer earlier.' sic
At the time of writing this tweet had a massive 3.2k retweets and nearly 200 comments, many from those who have been diagnosed with blood cancer, or know someone who has.
One user who commented on his tweet said, 'Reading all these tweets has made me realise I wasnt the only one that had to go through hoops before someone took a blood test before I was diagnosed with AML 4 years ago im now in remission it happens so fast think gp thought I was mad.' sic
Another user also commented saying she had a similar story with her dad who had died shortly after diagnosis.
Whilst Simon has taken the time to respond to many messages there are just too many for him to reply to, and earlier today he tweeted, 'I never expected a tweet about @bloodwise_uk ‘s #hiddencancer campaign to have the impact it did. I’ve had so many moving replies and I’m so sorry I can’t reply to all of them. To those whose story has been a positive one - I’m so glad. For those, like me, it wasn’t, God Bless x'.
Earlier this month Simon revealed that he would be returning to his family home which he shared with his late wife. In a statement on Instagram he said, 'Since Gemma went I've managed 30 seconds in our bedroom before breaking down'. He went on to explain that the room where they slept and held each other was 'now a room of pain'.
He continued, 'Now is not the time for snap decisions and new starts, but how on earth do I deal with a house that has her creative touch woven into its very being? A house that sings Gemma?'.
Since the beginning of the year has also been keeping his followers up to date with his son's progress and has shared a number of notes that he puts in his lunch box each day.
Simon Thomas is known for presenting on Sky Sports and previously presented Blue Peter for six years until 2005.