A mother was devastated to be told that her bad back wasn’t caused by sleeping on an old memory foam mattress – it was a symptom of an ‘aggressive’ form of leukaemia.
Gabrielle Altoft, 32, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, started experiencing ‘horrendous’ lower back pain in November 2025 after swapping mattresses with her son.
She said: ‘In November I started to get upper shoulder and neck pain and really horrendous lower back pain.
‘I thought it was my mattress – we’d switched the beds round with my son and we’d changed the mattress so I just presumed that’s what the problem was.
‘I couldn’t put my finger on anything else so I went to the GP and said I’m still really struggling with this back pain, it doesn’t seem to be easing off.’
Ms Altoft was also experiencing extreme tiredness and shortness of breath, and after painkillers failed to help ease the pain, the mother-of-three visited her GP who dismissed the pain as an injury and said they would refer her for physio.
Despite blood tests, Ms Altoft claims doctors failed to pick up on any abnormalities when her white blood cell count came back low – a tell tale sign of blood cancers including acute myeloid leukaemia.
The paralegal decided to purchase a replacement mattress – but says the pain continued to worsen to the point where she was ‘unable to walk’ and ‘doubled over in pain’.
Gabrielle Altoft thought her back pain was due to an old mattress – it was cancer
She must now undergo two rounds of chemotherapy
She said: ‘Because we’d had the mattress for a little while, I just presumed it was no good for me.
‘I said to my partner we need to get a new mattress because I was really struggling – I was in a lot of pain and I hadn’t been able to walk the dog or anything.
‘Later that month [November] we were away at my mum’s caravan and I was trying to walk the dog.
‘I can remember starting the walk feeling perfectly fine, and then by the time I got back I was doubled over, I couldn’t move.’
Ms Altoft says she returned to her GP with what she ‘thought was the superflu’ shortly after.
She said: ‘I started getting various different infections and then what I thought was the superflu – I spent five days in bed sleeping for about six hours a day.
‘I went into the GP and sobbed and said I’d never been unwell like this.
‘They told me it was viral.’
Ms Altoft with her partner Connor Jackson and their three children
She began chemotherapy in December 2025
After returning to the doctor for a separate gynaecology appointment, on December 16th 2025 Ms Altoft was referred for further blood tests.
The following day, she was asked to attend A&E urgently, where a doctor gave her the devastating diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive type of blood cancer.
Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer that starts in young white blood cells. It is more prevalent in older people, and affects around 4.2 adults per 100,000 in the UK.
Symptoms may include general weakness and fatigue, fever, frequent infections, bruising easily, weight loss and breathlessness.
AML’s cause is unclear. Smoking, being overweight, drinking during pregnancy and radiation exposure may increase a person’s risk of developing the disorder.
Chemotherapy is the main treatment, but a bone-marrow or stem-cell transplant may also be required.
Ms Altoft said: ‘I had a pre-booked appointment with another doctor for gynaecological issues.
‘I saw her and I said to her how bad my symptoms had been and that I wanted referring.
Ms Altoft was admitted to hospital days after an initial blood test on December 16
She feared she would die when she was told she has cancer
‘She agreed to do more blood tests then it was an absolute whirlwind.
‘The blood test was on the 16th, I was diagnosed the next day and by 11pm on the 18th I was admitted to hospital.’
Ms Altoft says she ‘thought she was going to die’ when she heard the diagnosis and was rushed in to start chemotherapy treatment the following day on December 18.
She said: ‘I was weirdly accepting [when I received the diagnosis] because I’d been so poorly I knew that something was wrong.
‘I thought I was going to die because of how ill I felt.
‘I went home and it was really strange – it was all really surreal, I pretended that nothing had happened in front of the children.
‘It was really tough.’
Ms Altoft started receiving intensive chemotherapy treatment on December 28th and says she will undergo a minimum of two rounds.
The legal worker says she is ‘disappointed’ that it took her so long to be diagnosed and is urging other people to ‘push for answers’.
Ms Altoft said: ‘I feel disappointed more than anything.
‘I knew if someone had taken the time to look through all of my blood results [at the start of November] it would have been very apparent that something wasn’t normal for me.
‘Just push and push [if you feel like something is wrong], you know your body.
‘Whether you’re 32 or you’re 18, your symptoms should be taken seriously.
‘With AML, you don’t have long to have those symptoms looked at before your organs shut down.’
