Adults

In 1990, I was diagnosed with M3 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) - now known as acute promyelocytic cancer (APL) - when I was a twenty-year-old college student studying abroad in Northern England.

In October 2015, Gisenia Reyes heard the words "You have cancer." Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive type of blood cancer. She immediately underwent chemotherapy treatment to save her life.

Gisenia attained remission status, however, she still had a mutation in her blood work, which could cause her to relapse.

In March 2017, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

This came as a huge shock. I immediately starting thinking about how this might impact my wife and our two young daughters' lives.

This story is memory of my late fiancé, Jonathan Bentley, who passed away from acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) at the age of 33 after a week-long battle. Jon was a truly amazing person; the type that you wish everyone could meet once in their lifetime. Although he is now gone, I wish to honor his beautiful spirit by sharing a little bit about him.

When the doctor calls you and says, "I need to speak to you as soon as possible," you know the news can't be good. I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia, blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN). Most doctors have never even heard of it.

Calvin and I are the best of friends, playmates, and hopeless romantics! We found each other in midlife, and we’ve decided to remain newlyweds because we can! We have the privilege of working together every day, and we really love it! Christ is the foundation for our marriage, so the adversities we have faced together made our relationship strong and stable.

In an instant, my life changed. “You have chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). There is no cure but patients can live for several years.” These were the words I received a few years ago at the age of 39 with three small children. I have been on an educational journey of self-discovery, cancer research, and patient advocacy ever since.

After six weeks of experiencing excruciating pain, I was diagnosed with enlarged B-cell stage 4 gastric lymphoma in July 2016. My oncologist in Tarzana, CA, was connected to a lead doctor in City of Hope and that COH doctor advised her to send my biopsy for further testing to see if it was double mutated. The test results came back positive and my cancer cells had double mutated.

I am a cancer and bone marrow transplant survivor. In June 2013, at the end of my eighth grade, I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). On top of that, it was the worst subtype of AML and my outlook was considered very grim.