It was meant to be the start of Tom Hunts gap year a fortnight in eastern Europe with five school friends. He had achieved an A* and two As in his A-levels and had an offer to study medicine at the University of Manchester. Before then, he wanted to do a ski season and travel around south-east Asia. But a week into his holiday, at the beginning of September last year, Tom was so ill he couldnt eat, drink or get out of bed. He booked a flight home from Prague.

When I picked him up from the airport, he looked dead, says Andrea, 51, his mother. He was really grey and smelt of bacteria.

Toms symptoms loss of appetite, fatigue, dizzy spells had all the hallmarks of glandular fever. But he also had a large, swollen haematoma on his knee, which had appeared after hours spent with his legs crossed on a train.

When I woke, it was killing me, just here, says Tom, 19, pointing at his thigh above his left knee. I thought it was a dead leg, but there was a massive lump and it was painful to walk.

Andrea thought Tom would get better with rest but within a week, having returned to the family home, he was hospitalised. The GP told Andrea: This lad needs tests and monitoring,because hes at risk of infection.

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I thought I had glandular fever on my gap year, but it turned out to be leukaemia - Telegraph.co.uk