JAMIE Wise has spent most of his life dealing with a blood disorder and now he wants youngsters to take his message to heart.
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The Tamworth-man was diagnosed with haemophilia at age two, but it took him many years before he treated it with the gravitas it deserved.
He doesn’t want more kids to go down the same path.
“It took me a lot of years, honestly, I was probably about 17 before I accepted the fact I was different and that I had to look after myself,” he told The Leader.
“They way I saw it, I had doctors, who didn’t have the problem telling me ‘don’t do this and don’t do that’.
“It’s only now that I’m facing operations to fix things that could have been avoided back then with more explanation, more investigation and more understanding.”
Mr Wise’s story will feature as an animation in a new app, Pharmacokinetics (PK) Xplained, aimed at helping haemophiliacs better understand their treatment.
He said he stumbled upon the opportunity after seeing a post on Facebook calling for haemophiliac-help.
“Straight away I jumped and told them my story and got chosen,” he said.
The app has been launched on World Haemophilia Day.
Mr Wise, a self-confessed footy-fanatic, said haemophilia stopped him from chasing his dreams on the field.
Unable to play, he refereed Group 4 rugby league for some time.
“A lot of people freak out when you say you have haemophilia, we’ll put you in cotton wool and put you in the corner,” he said.
Cathryn Corcoran, CEO at Medicine X, the organisation that created the app, said living with haemophilia could be frustrating but accurate therapy and information about a patient’s personal PK could make all the difference.
Ms Corcoran said story-telling was the best way for patients to understand their disease journey.
“Around 80 per cent of medical information provided by doctors is forgotten straight away. The Xplained apps are designed to fill these gaps in a creative and powerful way,” she said.