Dad dies from rare blood cancer after dismissing fatigue as work stress

A “fit and healthy” dad of three who put his tiredness down to long hours at work died after being diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer.In the summer of 2025, David Anthony ‘Tony’ Williams, 62, started complaining of tiredness.At the time, his daughter, Zara, 23, was back and forth to hospital for endometriosis treatment, and Tony was working long hours as a head of IT, five days a week, so his family put it down to general tiredness during a stressful time for the family.After getting back from a family holiday to Murcia, Spain, Tony was taking time off work and sleeping, so his family pushed for him to get his blood tested at Croydon University Hospital.Tony underwent a blood test and a bone marrow biopsy, and on July 18, 2025, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia – a fast-growing, aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow.Tony underwent a grueling four months of chemotherapy, which showed the treatment was working, but a second, more aggressive round of chemotherapy had failed.Tony developed a lung infection and a collapsed lung; doctors said that if the infection had cleared, he might have been eligible for a clinical trial.But it didn’t – and sadly, on November 12, 2025, Tony died.Zara, a musician and classically trained pianist from Norbury, South London, said: “My dad was waking up at, you know, three or four in the morning to drive me to hospital.“At that point, when I was calling my mom saying, like, ‘Dad’s sleeping all the time,’ I didn’t question it because, you know, if you’re awake at 3 a.m., and then you’re going to work at six, of course you’re going to be tired.“It had been a really stressful time, and my dad works really long hours Monday to Friday and gets very little time off except for the weekend, so of course he’s tired.“At the time, I just thought, he’s in his 60s now – he’s a bit older; people need to rest.”After initially dismissing the tiredness, Tony started experiencing a f...