🌀Mood: Drained. Foggy. Fragile. Enduring. I haven’t written in a while.Around Day 5, things shifted.I ended up being admitted into the hospital because I couldn’t keep my medications down. Every time I tried to swallow pills, my stomach would cramp and I would vomit. It got to the point where it just wasn’t sustainable anymore—physically or mentally.So now everything goes through my Hickman line. It’s … Continue reading 40 – Day 5 to Day 11: The Valley
After melphalan cleared the garden, the rebuilding could begin. Two days ago, melphalan cleared the garden.Today, my own stem cells came home. It’s taken me a few days to write this. After two days of stem cell infusions, I needed the rest. Now that I have a little more energy, I want to share what Day 0 was like. Day 0 at Fred Hutch started … Continue reading 39 — Day 0: The Beginning of the Rebuild
🌀Mood: Courage, Uncertainty, Preparation, Resolve Yesterday I met a different version of myself in the mirror. Today I began the treatment that will rebuild my body from the inside out. Today was melphalan day. Melphalan is the chemotherapy given before a stem cell transplant. Its job is simple, but powerful: wipe out the blood-forming stem cells living inside my bone marrow so new, healthy ones … Continue reading 38 – Melphalan Day — The Clearing Begins
🌀Mood: Reflection, Grief, Identity, Vulnerability, Courage Today I did something I knew was coming but still wasn’t fully ready for. I cut my hair. Not a trim. Not a new style. The kind of cut you get when chemotherapy is about to start and you know your hair won’t survive what’s coming next. Originally, the plan was to shave it completely before treatment began. But … Continue reading 37 – The Day I Met a Different Version of Myself
🌀Mood: Reflective, Grounded, Bittersweet, Exposed, Grateful, Hopeful (I’m writing this on my birthday, February 28th. By the time you’re reading it, the date will have passed — but I wanted to capture how today feels while I’m in it.) We came home to Olympia the day before my birthday. I woke up in my own bed this morning — something that already felt like a … Continue reading 36 – The Space Between Collection and Rebuild
🌀Mood: Disappointed. Exhausted. Resilient. Relieved. Still moving. The afternoon, after my first stem cell collection, I got the call. The one we had all been waiting for. The goal was to collect 8–10 million stem cells in one day. My team felt confident. I felt confident. We were rallying around the idea of “one and done.” So when the phone rang, I answered with hope. … Continue reading 35 – Not One and Done
🌀Mood: Triggered. Resilient. Competitive. Determined. Faith-filled. This week felt like my Olympics. Not the glamorous kind. The gritty kind. The kind where your body is pushed to its limits and your mindset becomes just as important as your muscles. The Hickman Line Before stem cells could be collected, I needed a Hickman line placed. For those who don’t know, a Hickman line is a central … Continue reading 34 – Going for Gold
🌀Mood: Supported, Loved, Humbled, Comforted, Transitioning, Carried My cousin arrived on Tuesday February 17th. And with her arrival, the apartment changed. Up until then, this season had felt very focused and contained — appointments, work, quiet evenings, and a lot of internal processing. Work had been a helpful distraction, something to pour my energy into while waiting for transplant to begin. But when she walked … Continue reading 33 – The Caregiver Arrives
🌀Mood: Thorough. Evaluated. Protected. Prepared. Strengthened. Intentional. If you think a stem cell transplant is just about cancer, you would be wrong. Before they give you high-dose chemotherapy, they test everything. Heart.Lungs.Kidneys.Liver.Infectious disease panels.Chest X-rays.EKGs.Pulmonary function tests.Dental clearance.Vein checks.And yes — even a full gynecology exam. No stone goes unturned. And honestly? That’s comforting. The Body Audit This week wasn’t just about my PET scan … Continue reading 32 – No Stone Goes Unturned
🌀Mood: Miraculous. Positioned. Grateful. Strategic. Steady This week, I received words I will never forget. “No active myelomatous disease.” On my PET scan — the imaging that detects metabolically active cancer cells — nothing lit up. No new lesions.No active bone marrow infiltration.No tumors outside the bone. In medical language, this is called a Complete Metabolic Response (CMR). In regular human language? It means the … Continue reading 31 – A Miracle, and the Green Light
My Anchor Holds 