or my re-birthday which is kind of how I think of it. Either way, I’m about 6 weeks from the 3 year milestone. The last year has really been a settling in. Thoughts about the experience and worry about relapse don’t occupy so much time in my head anymore. This…
A man hears what he wants to hear
and he disregards the rest. When I had my transplant, I had that simon & garfunkel song in my head (an earbug?) so much that I downloaded it. It did not bring me comfort–at all. Now when it plays through my mind, I think about the words peppered in about…
Clean up
Health wise, everything is still a okay. Last week I went to Seattle for a football game and returned with a cold virus. Side note, being a football photographer would be a dream job! I’ve done free lance for some newspapers…just putting it out there, hint hint! Today is my…
Exciting news x 2
I’m not going to bury the lead on this. Seattle is opening the FIRST IMMUNOTHERAPY CLINIC! I attended the Science Spectrum in Sun Valley and my head is reeling. There were 3 featured speakers who each deserve their own blog post, plus in other HUGE news for me, I met…
what a difference a year makes
I am fast approaching my 1 year mark since I received my car-t cells. July 2nd! On my recent lab visit, there was a research kit to get my 1 year mark samples. It’s tough to believe it was a year ago. I guess I should mention I am still…
15 minutes
My worldwide media blitz is coming to an end. I completed a slightly uncomfortable interview with Univision in Bogota, Colombia. Columbia? Colombia? Wherever Bogota is. Uncomfortable because I speak nada of Spanish. Uncomfortable because this was the interview where I began to realize a trend throwing some “gotcha!” question in there…
Many apologies for no updates
October–I’ll backtrack a few months. I had another PET/CT scan which was totally negative, and also not a single detectable b-cell* in my lab work. My cancer killing cells are still working. It’s a fantastic, couldn’t-be-better report. I was upgraded to NOT getting a PET scan every 3 months. Yay!…
My research is slacking significantly
I just saw this link, I can’t believe that I either missed this article or somehow forgot about it. Most of the information that is out about car-t cells quickly revolves around the financial aspect and who is going to make the most money off of it, while my interest…
Back to life
Everything seems to be getting back to normal, if it can be called that. My days still have a sense of urgency to them, like I need to squeeze every moment out that I can. On days that I fall short, my night involves tossing & turning, stressing over wasted…
I’m on top of the world
I think I was officially discharged yesterday. I got to go home. My clinic visit with the lead researcher Dr. Maloney was an emotional, joy filled experience. I am on cloud 9 and I can’t stop thinking about how fortunate I am in so many ways. My journey into this…