🌀Mood: Hopeful, Reflective, Grounded, Grateful, Cautiously Optimistic It’s Day 70 after my stem cell transplant, and on Wednesday I will have another bone marrow biopsy. Typically, these milestone tests happen closer to Day 90 after transplant. But my oncologist wanted mine done earlier, around Day 55, to get a sooner look at how my body — and the myeloma — are responding to treatment. I … Continue reading 50 – Two Things Can Be True
🌀Mood: grateful, reflective, healing, hopeful Tomorrow, I go back to work. Half days. Slowly. That sentence feels much bigger than it probably sounds. For weeks, so many people have been counting down to this moment for me. “Getting back to normal.” “Getting back to life.” And in many ways, I understand why. Returning to work after a stem cell transplant feels like progress. It is … Continue reading 49 – Half Days & Healing
🌀Mood: reflective, honest, grounded, hopeful, resilient There are certain milestones in this process that you hold onto. For me, one of those has always been Day 90. That’s the point where they typically run the big tests—the PET scan and the bone marrow biopsy—to see if you’re in remission. It’s been the marker in my mind. The checkpoint. The moment where you finally get a … Continue reading 48 – The Long Game
🌀Mood: uncertain, patient, honest, grounded, reflective One thing I’m learning about recovery is that it doesn’t always come with clear answers. Sometimes, it comes with more questions. I had an appointment with the neurosurgeon this past week to look into the pain I’ve been feeling in my back… along with a fractured rib on the right side. That alone was surprising. You would think that … Continue reading 47 – Waiting for Answers
🌀Mood: Grateful, honest, vulnerable, steady, hopeful Throughout the transplant process, the words you want to hear more than anything are:“You can go home.” I thought about that moment a lot.I pictured what it would feel like, how excited I would be when I finally heard those words. And when I did… I was. But the last week leading up to going home was rough.I had … Continue reading 45 – You Can Go Home
🌀Mood: Fragile. Adjusting. Honest. Rebuilding. I’m out of the hospital. And while that feels like a big step…this part of the journey is still far from easy. There’s this idea that once you come out of the valley, things start to feel normal again. That’s not really how it works. It’s more like… your body is slowly trying to find its way back. When I … Continue reading 43 – What Recovery Really Looks Like
🌀Mood: Relieved. Worn down. Grateful. Rebuilding. I got out of the hospital a few days ago, on Day 15. Ten days inside… and it felt like an eternity. At one point, I told someone I felt like a caged animal.No real sleep. Constant interruptions. Just trying to get through each hour. So being back at the apartment feels like a breath of fresh air. But … Continue reading 42 – Out of 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: 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
My Anchor Holds 