At 21, my roommate's son, Fred, was the usual "10-foot-tall and bulletproof" guy. He started feeling sick a month before his birthday, then his gums started to hurt. Easy ER visit, right? Flu, maybe COVID, and a tooth abscess. Not even close. A fast ER visit became a transport to a major hospital for a month-long stay — acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with two bad mutations. As terrifying as it was, he was young and strong, and they had a lot of hope for a cure. He had a bone marrow transplant and was doing great until he relapsed at six months. A clinical trial failed, and salvage chemo left his immune system stripped, leading to an ICU stay for trichosporon asahii blood infection spreading in his body. He fought hard, took every choice he had, his anonymous donor gave more stem cells for a boost and DLIs, and he won again.
They spent the next two years recovering and fighting graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a necessary evil, in hopes for graft-versus-leukemia (GvL) effect. Then something as simple as increasing back pain revealed a new relapse; AML had moved to his CNS. His spinal fluid was 98% cancer. Spinal taps were so painful he got brain surgery to place an Ommaya reservoir and started chemo, but the chemo failed. He kept going and picked treatment over hospice again, and radiation cleared it. Chemo pills were stopped due to low counts, and his bone marrow was slow to recover, leading to a new ICU stay for necrotizing pneumonia, which he's still recovering from. He's in remission, but they've seen the signs that a marrow relapse is coming. He needs a new stem cell transplant, and he's been fighting for it since this relapse started. The month he was hospitalized with a lung infection took so much from him, so he has to take a four-week chemo break to recover, but he's still pushing forward. In under four years, he's had 19 bone marrow biopsies, four spinal taps, brain surgery, 19 Ommaya accesses for chemo, 11 rounds of IV/pill chemo, three thoracocentesis, a chest tube, two ICU stays, and so much more. All of this time helping care for him, seeing what he's faced, I'm blown away by the strength he has to keep going. He is the strongest person I've ever met, and we know he will beat this.
We will forever be grateful to his hospital, their financial aid program, Blood Cancer United, and the platelet donation system in his hospital. Without all of this support, he wouldn't have had the chance to get this far and still be fighting. May 2026 be the third time's a charm that leads him into a life free of fighting cancer.
Nikki
Caregiver, supporter, donor
