🌀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
🌀Mood: Focused, Brave, Grounded, Curious After everything it took to get here, I wanted just one more night in my own bed. So instead of heading to Seattle Wednesday night, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning, packed the last of my things, and made the early drive north to Pete Gross before traffic. When I pulled into my assigned parking spot, I discovered … Continue reading 30 – Testing Begins
🌀Mood: Chaotic, Disoriented, Determined, Tender, Held I haven’t posted in a little while — not because I didn’t want to, but because these last two weeks have tested me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. There were moments when I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make it to Seattle in time for my stem cell transplant. The ER… Again … Continue reading 29 – The Storm Before Seattle
🌀Mood: overloaded, preparing, frustrated, holding on I have a date. February 5th. It’s the official start of my stem cell transplant journey. And now that it’s real, everything else is flooding in. I thought setting the date would feel like crossing a finish line — or at least reaching a clear checkpoint. Instead, it feels like someone opened the floodgates. The Insurance Loop That Won’t … Continue reading 28 – I Have a Date
🌀Mood: disoriented, self-advocating, realigning, hopeful I was still sitting in the infusion chair. Still trying to absorb what my oncologist had just told me — that I hadn’t actually graduated, that I was only halfway to zero, that everything I thought was happening next was now on pause. And then the phone rang. It was the transplant scheduling department at Fred Hutch.They were calling to … Continue reading 27 – Half Way There, Not Quite Yet
🌀Mood: Sober. Grounded. Clear-eyed. Emotionally heavy. When my husband and I walked into the transplant consultation at Fred Hutch, we still thought this might be a choice. We’d been told that freezing my stem cells and delaying the transplant was a possible path — maybe I’d stay on the treatment I was already responding so well to, and revisit the transplant later. It wasn’t ideal, … Continue reading 26 – If I Want to Live…
🌀 Mood: Grateful, quiet, grounded There’s a lot swirling right now. My numbers are improving.I’m moving from weekly chemo to every-other-week.I’m meeting with the transplant team at Fred Hutch.And I know there are hard days ahead. But before I step into whatever’s next, I want to pause.To name what I’m thankful for. Thankful for Healing, Even When It’s Slow I started this journey with advanced, … Continue reading 25 – Thankful: A Pause Before the Next Chapter
🌀 Mood: Bittersweet, reflective, steady, vulnerable My oncologist looked at me with a big smile and said, “You’re graduating.” Graduating? It took a moment to sink in. After next week, I’ll no longer be coming in for weekly treatments. My M-protein level is now at 0.08—a number I’ve been working toward for months. With that, I move to every other week instead of every week. … Continue reading 24 – Chemo #14 – Graduation Day
My Anchor Holds 