I never imagined I’d be writing a story like this. Not because cancer is rare — sadly, it’s not — but because I was always the healthy one. At 68, I’d spent my whole life active and strong. I never saw it coming. But on November 23, 2023, my life changed forever.
I had known for years that I was at risk for blood cancer due to a condition called thrombocytopenia, which I’d lived with for five years. Still, nothing prepares you for the moment it becomes real. I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and everything stopped.
Within days, my care team at UC Health’s Blood Cancer Healing Center launched me into treatment. Intense rounds of chemotherapy — three weeks on, one week off — became my new normal. Then came a bone marrow transplant, the turning point. It was my daughter’s bone marrow that saved me. That still overwhelms me.
I wish I could say it got easier after that, but it didn’t. During my six-week hospital stay, my blood pressure suddenly crashed. I was rushed to the ICU, and for the first time, I truly thought I might die. Thankfully, I stabilized and was moved back to a regular room, but everything had changed. I began wasting away. I dropped from 161 pounds to 125. I had no appetite, no cravings, no desire for food. Not even a smoothie.
Recovery was slow. When I was finally discharged, I came home a shadow of myself. I spent months on the couch, barely moving, just watching my blood counts — neutrophils, hemoglobin, platelets — rise and fall. Healing became my full-time job.
But little by little, I found my footing. In October, I began a reconditioning program with a local physical therapy team that had never worked with a post-transplant cancer patient before. We started slow — really slow — but it felt good. It gave me hope. It made me feel alive again. That program saved me in more ways than I can explain.
Now, as summer 2025 approaches, I can say it: I’m cancer-free.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing. I developed graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), and the first medication made me even sicker. We switched to prednisone, and tapering off has been its own battle. But I’m still standing. And more importantly, I’m moving forward.
Being unable to return to work forced me into a second retirement. But instead of seeing it as an ending, I decided it was a beginning. I gave myself three goals:
1. Get healthy. I’ve thrown myself into it — eating with purpose, going to the gym, getting back into physical therapy, working with a mental health therapist, and joining not one but two support groups. One is through Blood Cancer United for people with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and the other is a local Cincinnati nonprofit that welcomes cancer survivors from all walks of life.
2. Give back. I’m volunteering again, helping children in foster care as a CASA, showing up for others the way so many showed up for me.
3. Be the best person I can be. Every single day.
None of this would’ve been possible without the people who stood by me. My wife, my rock. She juggled a full-time job as a medical interpreter while becoming my full-time caregiver. She chose to be strong for me, hiding her own pain so she could help me heal. And she did it with such grace, such love.
My only daughter, who gave me life a second time through her bone marrow. She’s getting married this fall — and I’ll be there, strong and proud, because of her.
My friends — three incredible men — drove me to appointments, brought food, stayed in touch, and never once backed away. I’m not good at asking for help, but I learned something powerful: when you let people in, they rise to the occasion. It’s humbling and beautiful to experience that kind of love.
Cancer has changed me. I still get scared. A cough, a stomach pain, a bad lab result — my mind leaps to the worst. But I’m learning to manage that anxiety, to ground myself. It’s a work in progress.
What surprised me most is how much holistic support is out there, but how much of it I had to find myself. I asked questions, I researched, I hunted down information. And I acted. That’s how I survived. That’s how I grew.
And through it all, I’ve leaned on faith. I believe God’s not done with me yet. There’s more I’m meant to do. More to learn. More to give.
So here I am. Grateful. Healing. Still showing up. Still fighting. Still becoming.
Jose
myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)
