Man dies just five days after shock diagnosis
Michael Owens had met the love of his life but their world was turned upside down when the 23-year-old went to the doctor with a sore neck and a cough.
He had acute myeloid leukaemia – a very rare cancer.
“He was someone really special. He was really kind, he listened, he was funny. ” Michael’s fiancee Rosie Rechichi told 7 News.
Two days after his diagnosis he proposed to Rosie from his hospital bed.
“The hardest part, we thought, he was going to go through was chemo,” she said.
“He was scared but he didn’t think that he was going to pass away, like it wasn’t like that.”
But Michael never even got the chance to start chemotheraphy.
Five days after his diagnosis he died in his sleep.
“Once they pass you just go home, you just leave them,” Michael’s father Peter Owens said.
“You expect them to walk in the door and you expect all those things. It’s been about two months since then but it’s still raw, you still expect those things.”
Since Michael’s passing the family has raised more than $35,000 for leukaemia research.
In September his father is walking from Port Augusta to Adelaide to raise even more money – but he needs help.
“We need probably a Winnebago or something like that for a week to sit between me and the traffic behind us,” Mr Owens said.
“What I’d like to see come out of it is that other families don’t go through the pain.”
The family also want others to know that routine blood tests could save lives.
“You normally have to have a reason to have a blood test. Michael showed no signs of any illness. If at annual check-ups in the future you always had a blood test … it would be brilliant,” Mr Owens said.
