Hi Risa. Please be careful to not focus on what is stated & said. Overthinking & worrying will add more stress. There are zero guarantees in life as far as how long any of us live. I’ve had CLL for close to 11years & am still here. We are all different with what we have as well..a lot of variables & other medical challenges also play a part. As jmb stated above..live your life my friend!!

Depends on how fit one is. How old one is and so on. Having Leukemia does not necessarily kill you. BUT You will have a lowered resistance to other maladies and it is that what you catch / develop through having a lowered resistance that you will probably die from. Lowered Platelets may mean internal bleeding. Fewer White Cells may cause a common infection to get worse. Fewer Red Cells will / may cause heart strain. And being of a certain age does not help and neither does worrying about something one cannot do very much about. One has to accept it, it is not like giving up smoking or drinking beer wine etc. One has to accept it and blame medical Science for discovering one has the blood disorder. Years ago one would not have known and just died from Pneumonia or something else. Alfred E Neuman would say: What me Worry?

My father's sister had CLL and she was 93 when she died of old age. There are many medication that can be very effective with controlling those bad cells. I am 74 and I take medication for my CLL. The medication is good for 10 to 20 years then a new medication may be required. My wife limits me to 2 hours of doing tasks each day and she is very happy when I tell her I am doing nothing. I do visit the gym 3 times a week. I am up at 5 AM and outside doing property task at 6:30. This summer I have cut and split a cord of wood and I am stating my second cord of wood. I live in an oak tree forest and this morning I was outside on the roof sweep leaves off the roof. Every morning I get the leaves out of my pool before I do other tasks. I eat healthy and exercise which is a benefit for my health. This winter my wife had a seasonal flu 3 times and I was 100% healthy. We may have a long term illness but we can have a good long life if we take care of our basic health and do what it takes to be healthy.

Hi RisaTeate, It's understandable that length of life comes up after a diagnosis of Leukemia, I had similar thoughts as I lost my best friend to CML Leukemia--the same disease that I was diagnosed with. When she got sick I had never heard of it and her treatment was long and hard and disfiguring. She lived over a decade but it was a tough go. When I was diagnosed things were so different. I have always thought because of her suffering my treatment was better because she was part of CML research at Mayo. It's been 8 years now and counting. I am in full remission and doing OK, I move slower have a few muscle and joint issues but life is still good. My best advice is what I try to do everyday--go live. Do something for someone else, that's what my friend would want as she did that in spite of being sick, put that smile on your face-even if you have to dig deep to do it. You will benefit from going out and try. It beats sitting home and being scared. None of us have guarantees of long life--heck we didn't have that before Leukemia. What we do with our time is up to us--make it good. That's my plan anyway. Wishing you all good things.--jmb

RisaTeate
I was diagnosed with CML in 2016. My oldest granddaughter got married in 2020. I told my oncologist I was thankfulI there was a treatment for it, because I wouldn’t have to miss her wedding. His reply w/o treatment I probably wouldn’t have been alive to see it.
I think they have made so many advances in treatment that if you can tolerate the meds, you can have a longer life span.
I can’t speak for anyone else or for any other leukemias. I can only share with you what my hematologist & oncologist told me. Praying for all that are on this journey!