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Returning to School

Consider educating family members, friends, school personnel and healthcare providers about your child's possible long-term and late effects of treatment. In particular, talk with teachers about your child's needs before he or she returns to school, as they and other school personnel may not be aware of the potential for long-term and late effects of treatment.

Diarrhea and Constipation

Diarrhea and constipation are common side effects of cancer treatment. The severity of diarrhea or constipation varies among patients and depends on the type of treatment you receive. Sometimes side effects improve as you adjust to treatment. Most side effects go away when treatment ends.

Tell your healthcare team if you are experiencing new or worsening diarrhea or constipation. Do not take over-the-counter medications without talking to your doctor.

Follow these tips to manage diarrhea:

Relapsed and Refractory

Some patients have residual leukemia cells in their bone marrow even after they receive intensive treatment. In these cases, the disease is referred to as being “refractory” (or “refractory ALL”).

Other patients achieve remission but later have decreased numbers of normal blood cells and a return of leukemia cells in their bone marrow. This is referred to as a “relapse” of the disease (or “relapsed ALL”). 

Rachel

My name is Rachel Iruegas, and on June 4, 2019, I heard the dreaded words that no one ever wants to hear: “you have cancer.” I was diagnosed with stage 2B Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). In that moment, my mind went blank and my body numb. I honestly do not remember much of what my oncologist said after that. I knew I was in the room with her, surrounded by my family, but my body wanted to be somewhere else – anywhere else but there. I knew in that moment that my life was going to completely change, and I had no way of stopping that.

Don

Like so many individuals diagnosed with blood cancer, I had zero thought that I might be ill, much less with a disease that could take my life.

I had signs and symptoms that something wasn’t quite right in my body, annoying things like shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and fatigue. However, nothing registered in my head until after my diagnosis.

It’s September 2005, and I am pretty much invincible, bulletproof! I could, in fact, leap tall buildings in a single bound! Yes, in my mind I was Superman!

Chemotherapy

Because of acute lymphoblastic leukemia's (ALL's) rapid growth, most patients need to start chemotherapy soon after diagnosis.

Chemotherapy drugs kill fast-growing cells throughout the body including cancer cells and normal, healthy cells. The damage to normal, healthy cells can cause side effects. Yet, not everyone experiences side effects the same way. 

ALL treatment consists of:

Jamie

After he was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2013, Jamie was told by doctors that he’d never walk again, let alone ride a bike. Despite those predictions, he finished a 540-mile ride in June 2019 to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS).

Sarah

I was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-cell ALL) in October 2020 at the age of 38. It was a shocking diagnosis. I started feeling bad in September with extreme fatigue and some body aches, nothing terribly alarming. I'm a busy wife and mom of two young kids (ages 2 and 8 at the time of diagnosis) with a full-time job and two new puppies. I figured I was just worn out from everything. I had routine bloodwork scheduled for my annual physical. When my primary care doctor received the results, he called and asked me to go to the emergency room.

Heather

My name is Heather and I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) +FLT3/ITD on December 14th, 2017. That morning I noticed I was extremely pale and I had large bruises over my body. My doctor ran blood work STAT and within an hour I knew my platelets were below 20 and I needed to rush to the ER. I was pretty near death at that time. I was in Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), which has a pretty high mortality rate.

Heather

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk serves as an inspiring, empowering and comforting event, made possible by those who share, remember, and advocate for the fight against cancer. Each year, we here at LLS are graced with countless stories that demonstrate and display the spirit of this event. Heather Lee’s story is one of them.

Spencer

I am a 27-year-old transgender man who won a hard-fought battle with stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma just after graduating from college. My story begins with a good friend. One night, we were hanging out around the house and they caught a glimpse of my neck under a particular light and said, “Hey, come here for a second, your neck looks pretty swollen.” We both looked in the mirror and noticed something protruding from the space where the left side of my neck met my clavicle. I called my doctor’s office and made an appointment for the next day. 

Anne

My story with leukemia began in July 2016 when I was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). It was four months and 13 days after my wedding to my husband Eddie, and one month to the day after our vow renewal ceremony. What we didn’t realize at the time was that my body had likely been fighting for months. I thought my exhaustion was from wedding planning and running my writing business.

Caroline

In November of 2004, I was in the very best shape of my life. A few months prior, I had run my fastest marathon in San Diego, beating out all of my previous six finishing times in Austin, Nashville, Dallas, New York, and Boston. One month prior, I had completed the Los Angeles triathlon, finishing in the top bracket in my age division. I was even in the process of training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with my brother. Then my entire world was turned upside down.

Andrew

When I write about the fact that I have cancer, it is not my intention to suggest that I am in any way unique. Although when I was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2010, I did feel special, and not in a good way. At first, I thought I had a hernia. But the surgeon said no. It took almost two months for the biopsy of the lymph node that he extracted from my body to be definitively identified. They sent it to Bethesda for further analysis. Still no answer. I then had a second biopsy.

Ira

In August 2014, at age 48, I was literally in the best shape of my life. I was an avid cyclist, averaging more than 150 miles per week, leading groups of riders for my cycling club, and completing multiple 100-mile century rides in a single season. Over the course of just a few days, while cycling, I noticed a sudden setback in my performance. Virtually overnight I lost stamina, speed, and endurance. Roads or hills I had ridden countless times before instantly became unmanageable. Thinking I was battling the flu or a virus, I visited my doctor. Blood tests revealed an abnormality.

Chris

In 2008, my primary doctor noticed that my white blood cells were high (12,000 range) and referred me to a hematologist. The hematologist decided to "wait and see" for a while. From 2008 to 2018, we watched as my white cells slowly grew from 12,000 to 207,000. The oncologist then prescribed and 8-hour infusion of Rituxan. As I sat in the recliner chair with needle in arm, I got several violent reactions from the Rituxan and they pulled out the needle. The doctor told me that I needed a drug called  Imbruvica (Ibutrinib). I was

Bruce

In the fall of 2002, I had a missed call and a “call me when you’re out of class” text from my Dad. I was a sophomore at the University of Georgia when I heard, “Honey, I have cancer. Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM).” So, I took a deep breath and asked, “Okay, so what’s next? Surgery? Radiation? Chemo?” “Nothing, we wait until it gets bad enough for treatment.”

Judith

In 2016, my Mom/daughter's grandma, Baba (Judith W), was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). After her first round of chemo, she was discharged from a one-month hospital stay on my daughter's third birthday. Best birthday present ever. She continued fighting the disease with more chemo and ultimately received a stem cell transplant from an amazing donor. Amid the uncertainties of her recovery, we hosted our first lemonade stand fundraiser on Mother's Day weekend the following year in hopes of helping.

Alicia

You never think it will happen to you until it does. Hearing the idea that you might have cancer was one of the darkest moments of my life. I was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) in February 2023 at only 27 years old. I am a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter, and a pediatric ICU nurse. I am used to taking care of patients on their worst days, but becoming a patient made a huge impact on me and made me a better nurse and advocate for patients/family/friends. 

Elizabeth

On November 8, 2021, I was diagnosed with stage III multiple myeloma (MM), an incurable cancer. Prior to being diagnosed, I thought I was a healthy young woman and was just living life with my children. I would have different pains throughout my body, but I didn't think much about it and would ignore them for the most part. The pains throughout my body were getting more and more frequent, so I went to the ER in October 2021 because I was in pain and could not eat, they said I was possibly having acid reflux and gave me a prescription for nausea.

Will

In April 2021, as I was just starting to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to feel unwell. I was suddenly very tired and could not finish a soccer match. My family and I decided to reach out to our family doctor and look into my fatigue; we were not worried at all. We attributed my symptoms to adolescence and growth, and so did our doctor at first.

Rebecca

My mother died of multiple myeloma (MM) in 2001, 10 months after her diagnosis. She lived in a small town where the only treatment they offered her was chemo infusions. She was on dialysis the whole time. She was brave but scared, nonetheless. She didn't have much time to process the whole experience. I was 51 at the time and still believed I was bullet-proof! Silly girl!

Refractory and Relapsed Childhood ALL

Most children with ALL are cured with standard chemotherapy treatments. But about 15 percent of young patients have ALL that returns after remission. This is referred to as a “relapse” of the disease (or “relapsed ALL”). Some children are unable to achieve a remission because their cancer does not respond to treatment. In these cases, the disease is referred to as “refractory” (or “refractory ALL”).

Disease Complications

As myelofibrosis (MF) progresses, complications may arise:

Hair Loss

Drugs that damage or destroy cancer cells also affect normal cells. Rapidly dividing cells, such as hair follicle cells, are the most affected. This is why hair loss (alopecia) is a common side effect of chemotherapy. Hair loss can range from thinning to baldness. It may be sudden or slow. You may also lose hair from other areas of your body such as eyelashes and eyebrows. 

Hair usually grows back after treatment ends. The thickness, texture or color of hair may be different when it grows back.