Other Blood Cancers

Greetings from a friend in Canada! I am a two-time blood cancer survivor and marathon runner all because of the love of friends in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS)!

Twenty years ago I did two things that shaped my life.

July 3, 2021, was the day that my life changed forever. I had been dealing with odd symptoms for months, and after multiple visits with dismissive practitioners, I finally had the ear of a doctor who believed me. A tumor located in my mediastinum was discovered via a CT scan. This news was devastating.

I am a teacher from Texas. My journey to Team and Training wasn’t immediate. I moved to Texas from Louisiana. When I moved to Texas, I decided to start running to meet people and to help with my homesickness.

When I was 8 years old, I was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). I shocked the doctors with how I was still alive because I had a mass the size of a grapefruit on my lungs and masses all over my other vital organs. When I was admitted to the hospital, they got chemo going everywhere they possibly could—in my port, my arm, my foot.