A Note from LOS
Live in your vision, not in your circumstance
In 2010 I was diagnosed with Chronic Myleoid Leukemia, a chronic yet incurable form of cancer. I can tell you that at the age of 30 the term incurable is terrifying because you think it means terminal, and if I had been diagnosed just 10 years earlier I would have been facing a 5 year death sentence. So after the initial shock I made a decision not to wallow in my circumstances, but to always have a vision to motivate me in this fight, and that started with a simple vision of survival. Fortunately for me because of one of the targeted therapies developed through research funded in large part by the LLS, I have achieved that- It just means that I have to take a pill every day to help manage the disease. Next, came my vision of becoming a mom, despite being told that I would not be able to have children because of my CML.
Well, I got the disease under control, stopped treatment and gave birth to our daughter Colbie in 2013. However, it became clear given my disease progression during pregnancy, that I should not attempt that again. So, once I started treatment again and got the disease back under control our vision for another child led us to adoption. We quickly learned that having cancer can prevent someone from being able to adopt but we would not give up on our vision of expanding our family and my oncologist said he would fight for us. Again, because of these treatments he was able to show that my disease is being controlled and we were so fortunate to welcome Sloane to our family in 2017.
So now it is on to a new vision of a cure because while I am so lucky to be where I am, I live with side effects and the uncertainty of what the long-term impact of these new drugs are doing to my body, so I WANT the cure. And more importantly, with the support system I have, I BELIEVE in the cure and that this vision will become my circumstances. This is MY vision and MY story and as one of my supporters YOU helped create it, but I am only one of thousands of blood cancer patients with similar stories that are impacted by your support and for that I cannot thank you enough.