Cherokee County Fire And Emergency Services: Pope Returns To Work After Leukemia Diagnosis

Press release from the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services:

August 9, 2021

Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services is extremely proud to have Fire Investigator, Ashley Pope, back with us after a long absence from work. Ashley went for a routine physical earlier this year and it was later discovered that he had a critically low blood platelet count of 10,000.  A normal platelet count is between 150,000 and 400,000 per microliter of blood.  Pope was admitted to the hospital on February 25th and, on March 2nd, he was diagnosed with having Acute Myeloid Leukemia, which is a type of blood cancer where excess of immature white blood cells or myeloid line of blood-forming cells is made by the bone marrow.  He was in the hospital for approximately 26 days and was released on March 25th.  “I got told by the doctors that I was in complete remission on July 20th, so I came back to work on July 26th,” stated Pope. Ashley has been with the fire department since November of 2019 after working with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office for 14 years.  Ashley and his wife, Hollen, reside in Forsyth County with their two children Indi and Gunnar. Thankful and blessed is how Ashley feels now since he has returned to work.  Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services is extremely grateful to have him back at work with us and we wish him the very best!

This press release was produced by the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services. The views expressed here are the author’s own.