Young Adult

I was truly honored to be a recipient of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) Scholarship for Blood Cancer Survivors. After fighting two different types of cancer, both forms of lymphoma and leukemia, I was unsure what my collegiate education would look like.

After being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in March of 2011 when I was only 10 years old, my entire life changed and was put on hold. I went through months of treatments to slow down the cancer, looked for the best possible hospitals in my area, and was able to get a bone marrow transplant in August 2011 from my brother who was a matched donor.

Back in 2017, my sister Karley was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). It was a huge shock to her and our family as up until that point she was a healthy 25-year-old woman. She went through a tough battle, including losing her spleen, countless spinal taps, infections, etc. But in November 2017, she received a stem cell transplant (from me!

I was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) on July 26, 2019, and even without the involvement of a pandemic, I imagine that’s reason enough to believe that to me 2018 seems like a lifetime ago.

In October 2015, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. After growing up never getting sick, I had cancer. It was incredibly difficult to comprehend at the age of 13 that I was about to endure something most people won’t experience in a lifetime. I went through four rounds of chemotherapy and was in remission in January of 2016. Once you’re in remission, you believe that that’s the end.

Last year in June of 2021, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at the age of 24. This diagnosis came as a complete shock to my family and me! My symptoms included extreme fatigue, migraines, bruising, nose bleeds, and radiating leg pains. All these symptoms came and went, and I never would've imagined it would be cancer. I attributed my symptoms to the stress from work.

I was diagnosed on February 21, 2020, with stage 3B nodular sclerosing Hodgkin lymphoma (NSHL). I was attending UNLV and working on finishing my prerequisites to apply to the nursing program. One month later, COVID hit the U.S. and shut everything down. I had to go to all of my appointments alone. I was able to freeze my eggs before starting treatment two days later on April 3, 2020.