Inspirational Stories

I was 38 years old; my three-year-old daughter was turning four in one month. My wife and I just found out that we were expecting a new little one in eight months. I had been feeling weak, tired, and just like I had had a sickness that wouldn't go away for about four weeks. I just kept pushing through and going to work without giving it much thought, and I even went to the ski hill for a snowboarding day trip. I had gone into a few different walk-in clinics at that time, and they had told me I was young, and all viral tests were clear. Then my calves started to really get sore and worse each day. I finally made an appointment with my doctor, and I was able to get in thankfully within a week. At that time, I tested positive for strep and had a slightly elevated heart rate. My doctor looked at me and said, "I have more questions than I have answers at this point. I would like to do a full blood work-up on you. Is that okay?" I said yes as I was hoping to find out what was going on so I could start to feel better. She sent me home with a high dose of antibiotics and steroids for my legs. Then the next morning, I stayed home from work and had breakfast with my wife and daughter. They decided to go to the store and pick up some things for the week, and I was going to stay home and get some rest. I sat down and started to watch a movie, and my phone beeped showing I had missed a call, and I had a voicemail from my doctor. She was telling me to get to the ER as fast as I could because my white blood cell count was at 175,000, and she believed that I had blood cancer and that I needed to start treatment right away to stand a fighting chance.

Then the next few hours all happened so fast, and I couldn't believe this was happening to me. My mother-in-law came to the hospital to sit with me for the day. She helped me get through some of the hardest few hours of my life. My dad was flying in to stay with me for four weeks, and then my mom was coming to stay for a month or more later. I was diagnosed on March 23, 2023, and my first treatment was the next day. I would be in the hospital for the next five weeks. My legs were hurting because I had developed four blood clots, two in each leg. I had to have a filter installed to make sure the clots didn't travel into my lungs or heart and had that done between them switching out my chemo bags and also getting a few bags of platelets to make sure I wasn't going to bleed out. I was told right away that I would have to receive a bone marrow transplant as part of my treatment, but we would have to get the treatment started here before we could go to transplant.

After the first few days, I actually started to feel better! My legs started to feel better. I wasn't feeling as sick as I had been for the last month or more. That only lasted a day or two, and then the chemo started to set in. I had really bad sores in my throat, and it felt like I was swallowing glass anytime I tried to swallow. I was put on IV nutrition for about seven days before my throat started to feel good enough to eat or drink anything. At that time, I stopped moving. I stopped getting out of bed and started to lose weight super-fast, and I kept telling myself that the doctors and nurses would take care of me and that I didn't need to do much. I was wrong, and I learned so much from that! Towards the end of the treatment stay, I started to get fevers overnight, 102° then 103°, and it was only happening at night. There was nothing they could find that was causing it. Thankfully, I pulled through it all, and I was in remission after my induction treatment. My doctors wanted me to get to MD Anderson to start my search for a donor as soon as possible. I had lost around 30 pounds, but I was ready to fight! 

The night I got home, my wife and daughter were sleeping, and my mom had brought me back to my house. We quietly got into the house, and it was the best sleep I had in weeks. The next morning, my wife and daughter came downstairs to see me for the first time in five weeks. My daughter is medically fragile, and with my wife being pregnant, we decided to keep them both away from chemo. My daughter jumped on me in bed, and, at first, I was so happy, but I realized I was so weak I couldn't breathe. I got scared and had to have my wife get her off of me, and then my daughter got scared. I decided right there that I needed to do more and get stronger both for myself and my family. I had left the hospital with a walker but started to move around at home on day one as much as I could. The next day I pushed a little more, and then more, and more. Before I knew it, I was walking three miles in the morning, then five miles, six miles, and I started to feel strong! 

After about a month and a half out of induction, I was able to get into MD Anderson for my next steps moving forward. I was told that I needed to keep up consolidation chemo until I had a donor match, and I would start that weekend after meeting my doctor. I was scared and nervous because I had felt so good for the last few weeks and started to get stronger. I wasn't ready to get knocked back down again like I was in my induction treatment. On my first night in the hospital, I had so many questions, and my nurses answered them all. I felt a lot more at ease and wanted to prove to myself and my family this was going to be different, it was going to be better this time around. I took everything that I learned or didn't do during my induction treatment and put them to work. I walked every day just like at home, if not more. I rinsed my mouth with salt and baking soda three to four times a day. Every time I started to feel the weight of the chemo hit me, I got up and started to walk, not fast but just to move. Walking got me tired, but I felt tired from walking and not from the chemo, and that was something I had control of. That was a big thing when you didn't have control of so many things. 

After a few months of consolidation treatment, I was lucky to have a match! My transplant date was set for mid-July 2023, and it looked like I would only have one more month of chemo before I started the transplant steps. I was so excited but also scared and worried about the transplant. I was told that when you have a rough time during induction treatment, the transplant was going to be similar. I had learned so much, and I told myself I was different, and I was fighting this time, and it would be different! One week before I started my transplant chemo, I received a call from my transplant team letting me know that my donor had been in an accident of some kind, and it would be a minimum of four weeks before he could donate if he still wanted to after he got better. I was devastated and had so many things running through my head. The first thing was I needed to go through more consolidation chemo and for how long? Would he still want to donate? Why me? I was reminded that so far things were going well, and everything had seemed to happen for a reason up to this point. I believed that this had happened for a reason as well. 

I found out quickly that my donor was determined to donate and was going to make it happen as soon as he could after that four-week timeframe! My new date was set for August 23, 2023. I went through another round of chemo and had about two weeks before I started my transplant chemo, and I didn't want to change anything. I tried to eat, have fun, walk, and stay strong! I knew going into the transplant I wanted to be in the best place both physically and mentally as I could. My dad came down to stay with me during my transplant and help me get to chemo the week leading up to being admitted into the hospital. I was excited and worried that something else would happen again and that the donation wouldn't happen. The last day I was at the cancer center getting chemo before being admitted to the hospital later, my wife called me when I was in the chair getting chemo and told me that she, my daughter, and my mother-in-law had tested positive for COVID. My dad was in the chair next to me, and I told him to get out of the area and test ASAP! I was shaking, I was so scared! There was no stopping, no going back at this point. I had been under heavy chemo to kill off all of my bone marrow for the last week. My dad tested positive as well, and I had been spending all of my time with these four people, driving for hours in the car with my dad back and forth to the clinic all week to get chemo. I tested and had to wait a day for my results. NEGATIVE! I couldn't believe it; I was clear! They wanted to test again on another day to make sure, but it was looking good. Another day came and went, and I'm still NEGATIVE! I had someone watching over me and helping me get to this point, and that was shown to me again! 

My stepmom flew in to help me during the transplant because my dad wouldn't be cleared for days, and this was now only two days away. My stepmom had donated her stem cells 14 years before to help someone, so for her to see both the donation and now me receiving them was a full-circle moment for her. On the day of the transplant, I kept asking, “Did they make it? Were they here yet?” I was ready! I was feeling weaker than before, but I had done some much and learned new things to help me stay strong. They finally showed up, and I was ready to get hooked up. My nurse explained to me that the cells would normally take about 30 minutes to an hour, and she would stay with me until they were done. I was talking with my family over video calls, and within 15 minutes, it was over. My body pulled all the cells in, and I was off! I felt so tired after all the excitement and just relaxed. 

I was determined the next day to get back to walking and staying strong. I couldn't walk miles anymore, but I was able to get up and get about a mile or two within the whole day, and that made me feel so much better. I was lucky to have a perfect match; it made my transplant go so much easier. Before I knew it, my dad was back there with me, and we were getting close to getting home again. Four days before I got released, I got a phone call from my wife at 4:00 a.m. that my daughter had a seizure, and the ambulance was on the way. My wife is at home alone, 10 months pregnant, and my daughter has a 30-minute grand mal seizure. I called the nurse and was ready to leave that second! I had to have my dad take my place and get home for me. My daughter recovered, and, thankfully, no long-term damage was done. I left the hospital walking out and ready to get home! 

After about a month and a half, I was strong enough to start the maintenance chemo that I would be doing for the next two years. Right before I started, my son was born, and I was able to be there for him and my wife! As I'm writing this, it is my one-year transplant anniversary, and I'm doing well. I've been back at work for about five months and living my life as much as I can each day. Having my family with me each step of the way was important; I couldn't imagine doing it on my own. My friends reaching out just to say “hi” and to see how I was doing was such a big help, and, more than I realized, it helped so much at the time. I know my journey isn't over, but I'm feeling good today and off to a great start! Keep fighting, and keep getting better each day!