After giving birth to Jude, at first I wrote off my exhaustion and the cough that just wouldn’t go away as normal new mom stuff. Once I learned this was not the case, I discovered that in fact, I had an 8 x 12 cm mass in my chest and was diagnosed with primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma in November of 2023. Within days, I was starting an aggressive chemo regimen that had me visiting the hospital just about daily, severely immunocompromised (yes, with 4 young kids at home), and terrified.
Today, I can say with enormous gratitude and relief that this chapter is behind me and I am one year in remission. Yet as my family and I navigated this ordeal, I was reminded at so many turns just how connected we all are - through the multiple life-saving blood transfusions I received, the kindness shown to me by my community of friends, family and neighbors, and the treatment I received that is no doubt a result of research funded by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). In fact, LLS has helped fund over 70% of FDA-approved blood cancer treatments over the last 20 years.
Through the many hours I sat in the infusion chair - toasting with coffee cups to our first wedding anniversary, planning Eve’s 6th birthday party, muddling through work emails, and fawning over photos of Jude taking his first steps - I promised myself that as soon as I was able, as soon as I regained some strength, I would do my part to make a difference for others: to make their experiences more comfortable and contribute to a cure. So I bought my first pair of running shoes and am ready to race!
This June, I will be participating in Moms in Training on behalf of all of the families navigating their blood cancer journey. Please join me in my fundraising efforts in support of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) MIT initiative.
