Inspirational Stories

My wife was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in November 2014. She went through a three-year protocol of a steroid regimen followed by one year of oral chemotherapy. She was pronounced in remission after one segment of chemotherapy but went through the entire protocol. Living in Chicago at the time, she was treated at Northwestern under Dr. Diner, a specialist in her type of ALL.  Then in 2020, we moved to North Carolina and were referred to Dr. Kataryna Jamieson at UNC Hospital for what we thought would be a yearly or biannual checkup. In July of 2020, Dr. Jamieson concluded my wife "had a better chance of being hit by a car than for the leukemia to come back. We were elated! Then in January of 2021, she was diagnosed with a relapse of ALL, and a bone marrow transplant was her only option.  Again, through many medications and a STRENUOUS appointment schedule, she had a bone marrow transplant on July 20, 2021. After her original donor backed out of the program after committing to Be the Match, our son donated his stem cells, and even at "half of a match" (since he is our child donating), her body accepted his stem cells. As a caretaker, I did all of the cooking, and laundry, taking her to all of her appointments until she was strong enough to do those things again. Today she is still working on getting her strength back but can do some cooking, etc.