Search Results

Eli

March 16, 2013. I will never forget the moment I first saw the bump. We went to the pediatrician that afternoon. Our doctor looked at Eli and said “Don’t worry. This is not cancer.” A month later we were in for a checkup and a doctor suggested that we should have Riley Hospital take a look. We got into Riley in May and they told us that we would need to do a MRI. I will never forget how we heard over and over “these things are rarely cancer.” After MRI’s and ultrasounds they decided to remove it. This was August -- six months after I had first brought it to their attention.

Survivorship

Use this Survivorship Workbook to collect all the important information you need throughout diagnosis, treatment, follow-up care and long-term management of a blood cancer.

Central Nervous System (CNS) Lymphoma

Central nervous system lymphoma is a rare non-Hodgkin lymphoma in which malignant (cancer) cells from lymph tissue form in the brain and/or spinal cord (primary CNS) or spread from other parts of the body to the brain and/or spinal cord (secondary CNS). Because the eye is so close to the brain, primary CNS lymphoma can also start in the eye (called ocular lymphoma). The cancer can also involve the spinal fluid that bathes the spinal cord and brain. This is called leptomeningeal lymphoma. Both primary and secondary CNS lymphomas are rare diseases.

James

I am a cancer survivor and my story starts in the summer of 1999. On June 9, an MRI revealed a tumor the size of a golf ball in my brain. A biopsy showed it to be a primary central nervous system non-Hodgkin lymphoma. I remember this date vividly because it was my wife’s birthday and she had to break the news to me. This marked the beginning of our journey.

Lisa

On February 3, 2020, my life changed forever. My husband and I welcomed our first child, a baby girl named Quinn. But, three weeks after she was born, I started to not feel the best.

On Friday, March 13, 2020, the day of the COVID-19 shutdown, my life changed forever again. After two weeks of having fevers and night sweats and being tested for everything but cancer, I went in for scans. Two hours after I had my scans, I got the call that nobody wanted to hear. I had cancer.

Katie

I want to share my blood cancer journey. It all started back in October 2019 when I was at Gonzaga University. I started to experience the symptoms that I’m sure we’re all far too familiar with ― stomach pain, digestive problems, nausea, chest pain, and fatigue, all of which I was dealing with in addition to 20+ hours a week of tennis practice and a 15-credit class load.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

• Is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood
• Progresses rapidly without treatment
• Does not have a clear cause

Click here to access ALL statistics. 

Click here to access information about ALL in children and teens. 

Daniel (Lil Sicky)

Cancel blood cancer with web3! Daniel is a 27-year-old lymphoma patient who combined his medical diagnosis and love of digital art into an NFT project supporting The Leukemia & Lymphoma (LLS) patients and their families.

In November 2021, Daniel was diagnosed with stage three nodular sclerosing Hodgkin lymphoma (NSHL). Like so many others during the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been isolated to protect his health and has been unable to work.

Andrea

In October 2015, my family had just moved to Texas for a new start.  I had a new career, and two young boys ― a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old.

I wasn’t feeling well and went to urgent care one day where we discovered my white blood cell count was 113. They sent me straight to the ER where I was all alone because we had no one here yet and couldn’t bring the kids to the hospital. Three days later, I was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Cynthia

Cynthia was on a family vacation in 2015 when she began experiencing back pain so severe that she had to be in a wheelchair for the rest of the trip. When she returned home, Cynthia went to see her doctor who referred her to an oncologist. After several tests, Cynthia was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. She was devastated. Chemotherapy and radiation soon followed, along with horrible side effects, sleepless nights and countless blood transfusions. But Cynthia was not going to let cancer defeat her.

AnnaKate

In my junior year of college, I felt so sick that I would sleep through online classes, throwing up every couple of days. I thought I was just stressed and not sleeping enough at night. However, a month later, a relentless cough took over. It was nonstop ― cough after cough and nap after nap.

David

On June 17, 2014, 12-year-old David Stim visited his pediatrician's office to have a routine school physical. During the exam, the nurse practitioner noticed an enlarged lymph node on the right side of his neck and surmised that it probably due to a reaction to something, as is almost always the case in pediatrics. Since David had been treated for strep throat the month before, there was not much cause for concern.

Amrita

November 2007 was the start of my journey as a cancer warrior and survivor. I was diagnosed with Diffused Large B cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) and it is incredible for me to reflect on the fact that I am coming up on my 15th year anniversary of diagnosis and treatment. I do hear and read powerful stories of other survivors and in so many ways I think my journey with and after cancer diagnosis resonates with those.

Jason

I'm Jason, and I am 38 years old. Early last year I was very sick. I had a fever that would not go away for over three months. Every day I broke 103 degrees, and at least six times I hit 106 degrees. I was getting bloodwork after bloodwork done, seeing doctor after doctor when finally, I met my oncologist, and he did a bone marrow biopsy. He called me the next week and told me I had stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and we needed to start tests immediately so we could expedite my chemo treatment.

Paula

My Cancer Story/Journey so far:

I was diagnosed 21 years ago at age 44 with low-grade indolent B cell follicular lymphoma.

I went for a routine colonoscopy, and they found a very small swollen lymph node in my ileum. I had absolutely no symptoms at all. After two colonoscopies in two weeks and four medical consultations, I went through CHOP chemotherapy. Today, they would have just done "wait and watch." At the end of my treatment, even my oncologist said if I had come to him without other recommendations, he would have done nothing. Anyway, that is history.

Jennifer

I remember diagnosis clearly. I was sitting in the UCSF doctor’s office of a man I had not met before a physician I was referred to. I had first gone to a doctor on my Blue Cross Insurance list, a Russian woman who said the word “lymphoma.” I was hoping the foreign word would continue to be foreign. She gave me a referral to UCSF on Fillmore Street in San Francisco close to where I was living at the time.

Lily

My name is Lily Tran. On December 7, 2007 my father passed away. A week after returning home from the funeral, I was sick with pneumonia. My primary care doctor prescribed me antibiotics and an inhaler. Two weeks later, I was still not feeling well. I was swelling and I was experiencing a sharp pain on the right side of my stomach. In January 2008, I went to the ER and they did an ultrasound of my stomach and saw something was wrong with my gallbladder and admitted me to the hospital for an operation to remove the gallbladder.

Dave

It all started for me the day our first child turned two months old. She was extremely colicky, and we would spend hours every night trying to get her to sleep. This particular night, I bounced on our exercise ball to try to get her down, and that caused some extremely bad back pain. I could tell something was seriously wrong. When I woke up the following day, the pain was significantly worse, and there was no way that I could even work.

Addison

Florida is my happy place. It's where I've vacationed for over three decades. And when my husband and I had kids, it became our family's happy place too. Schedules are forbidden on vacation. We tell time by the sun as we sit on the beach with our feet in the sand, watching the tide roll in and out. While on vacation, we celebrate birthdays ― and they're done up big ― because that's the only way that we know how to celebrate birthdays ― BIG.

Relapsed and Refractory

Refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is NHL that has not responded to initial treatment. Refractory disease may be disease that is getting worse or staying the same.

Relapsed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is NHL that responded to treatment but then returns. 

Miriam

My name is Miriam Hernandez, and I have been a long-time volunteer with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). I first started volunteering in 2010 working with the LLS Greater Los Angeles Region and their Patient Services Team to help with outreach into the Latino community in Los Angeles. I worked on an education program about myths and misconceptions about blood cancers done in the form of a “bingo” style game.

Andrew

When I write about the fact that I have cancer, it is not my intention to suggest that I am in any way unique. Although when I was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2010, I did feel special, and not in a good way. At first, I thought I had a hernia. But the surgeon said no. It took almost two months for the biopsy of the lymph node that he extracted from my body to be definitively identified. They sent it to Bethesda for further analysis. Still no answer. I then had a second biopsy.

Samantha

I was diagnosed with cancer in January 2023. We initially thought it was a misshapen aortic arch until I got an echocardiogram. After I was formally diagnosed, I told my friends. I underwent surgery, and my friends and family came to visit me once I was awake. I was set to be in a runway show before I was diagnosed, and I decided to still walk in it. I dyed my hair purple before the show so I could raise awareness on the runway. This is when my modeling career began, and I began to gain a following on TikTok.

Helena

In 2018, a few days before Thanksgiving, Helena noticed something. She was having difficulty lifting speakers at her gigs. She became winded after only a few songs. Even the most minute tasks became daunting.

Heather

Heather Banks draws her inspiration from her good friend, who has been fighting non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for the past 10 years and her college best friend who is a survivor. She is motivated by her friends’ strength, determination, and positivity. In times of feeling helpless, she channels that energy and puts it into her sewing machine.