A first date went in a completely new direction when colleagues Chloe and Josh Jackson got a call no one ever wants to receive – from the hospital asking Josh to come in urgently.
After the couple, from Doncaster, met at the construction company they both worked at the time, their spark was undeniable. Occasional chats on snatched moments soon revealed that Josh had a pilot’s licence and Chloe had always wanted to join the RAF.
First meeting in February 2021, within a few months, Chloe and Josh began developing feelings for one another and in June that year, Josh asked Chloe on a date.
But, as the big day approached, he started to feel increasingly unwell, with worsening night sweats, fatigue and some bruising.
Josh, 30, now managing director of the international branch of a Dutch railway company, said: “I’d recently moved house and it had a hot tub in the garden. I thought I’d developed an infection from the hot tub.
But as the day went on, he got worse. Josh explained: “I’d woken up drenched with sweat. It actually looked like I’d wet the bed, it was that bad. So I rang the GP and told them what had happened, and they told me to come in for blood tests straight away that morning, which I did.”
Josh, not feeling up to sitting up all evening in the formal setting of a restaurant, but not wanting to cancel their date, invited Chloe, 26, a commercial sales manager, over to his house for dinner.
The couple were only a few hours in when the phone rang. Josh said: “I hadn’t been feeling very well that day. We were going on our first date and I didn’t feel up to going out for a meal.
“My tongue had started to swell up that afternoon and I couldn’t eat much, so I offered to cook Chloe dinner at my house instead. But, just as I was starting on the cooking, the phone rang and it was the hospital. They asked me to come in straight away and Chloe said she would come with me.”
While Josh was surprised to get the call, he still wasn’t expecting to hear anything serious, thinking he’d just be given some antibiotics to deal with the issue.
Instead, the news was devastating – Josh had acute myeloid leukaemia and needed to start lifesaving treatment. This type of blood cancer starts from young white blood cells in the bone marrow and, while younger adults and children get it, it’s most commonly diagnosed in older people.
“I never expected it to be leukaemia and neither did Chloe,” added Josh. “It was a real shock and so hard to take in. I’d been feeling fatigued through most of Covid lockdown and I’d thought it was because I’d been working too hard.
“But doctors think I had developed a condition called myeloid dysplasia syndrome, which is an early form of blood cancer that can lead to leukaemia.”
The diagnosis was a shock for Chloe – mum to four-year-old son, Oscar, from a previous relationship. She said: ”I knew he hadn’t been feeling well for a while.
“Josh was one of the healthiest people I’d met. He never drank, smoked, or did anything considered to be a risk factor for cancer. He was a keener runner and looked the picture of health. It was the last thing we expected to be told.
Chloe said she decided to support Josh through the journey as she “fell in love” with him before their first date. She said: “I knew that it would be a hard journey.
‘I’d only just met Josh and when you are only a few weeks down the line, it’s a big choice to make. But we had already fallen in love, even in that short time.
“He kept saying to me ‘I’ll understand if you leave,’ but I knew that I couldn’t. I wanted to be the pillar of strength that he needed by his side.
“It was tough. We were both young and the start of a relationship is meant to be exciting, not like this, sat in a hospital room facing cancer.
“But I knew I couldn’t leave him now. From the moment we met, we had just clicked, and we knew we wanted to be together. Now we would face this together, too. So I told him I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Just days after their first date, Josh developed sepsis – an often life-threatening reaction to an infection – which he managed to beat, going on to start chemotherapy straight after.
Chloe, who went with him to every treatment session, added: “We tried to make it as fun as possible. We would dance around to the beep of the machines, being silly and trying to make light of it.
“I drove him to and from the hospital and we would have the Spice Girls on at full blast on the radio, which made him laugh. It really helped.”
But just 21 days into his chemotherapy at Sheffield Teaching Hospital, Josh developed bone marrow failure, and doctors told him he needed a stem cell transplant to survive.
His brother Joe and sister Lucy were tested – with his brother, who agreed to donate, proving a 100% match, with the transplant taking place in October that year.
A success, at first, Josh then developed a condition called graft versus host disease, which is when the T cells in the donated bone marrow attack the body’s own cells. It happens because the donated cells initially see the body’s own cells as foreign.
Treated with steroids to reduce inflammation and dampen the new immune system, the body then, hopefully, adapts.
As Josh recovered, he had one more important task to perform. In July 2022, aboard a boat on the Norfolk Broads, he asked Chloe to become his wife.
She continued: “It was a complete surprise. We’d just had a champagne breakfast on the boat and then Josh proposed.
“He couldn’t properly get down on one knee, as the chemotherapy had damaged the bone and caused bone loss in his knee and it was painful for him, but he managed to kneel on the sofa where I was sat, and asked me to marry him.
“I was in complete shock, and I Facetimed my mum and sister straight away.
“Josh had to remind me when I was on the phone to them that I actually hadn’t given him an answer! I was so excited and taken aback I’d forgotten to say yes!”
The couple tied the knot in August, 2023, at Danby Castle in Whitby, and now want to catch up on all the adventures they were deprived of when Josh was sick.
Chloe said: “It was so emotional, as all the guests knew what we’d been through. The speeches meant the world to us. Josh’s dad said how he’d seen us through this journey together and what I did for Josh was amazing. But I did it out of love. I never stopped to think about it.”
Josh’s brother Joe added: “I never hesitated to step in and donate to save Josh. We were a 100% match and to see him and Chloe get married and have a life together now means the world to me.”
This year, Josh is having surgery on his left knee, to try and repair the damage and rebuild the bone loss. Now cancer free, he is then hoping to put the whole ordeal behind him.
