Hi! Nathaniel here, but you can call me Nate. I am an 18-year-old North Carolina Scholar, 2015 graduate of Franklinton High School who graduated with high honors. I am a future student of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, majoring in mechanical engineering.
I do not aspire to be a hero, I just want other patients to realize that any one of us can have a long life after receiving such a horrible diagnosis. Times may be difficult but anything is possible.
I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in March 2014, had chemotherapy treatments for six months and was found to be in full remission by October 2014.
Dave and I have been a part of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) since 1998. I can’t even remember how many Team In Training events we’ve done. We have both done at least one a year if not more since Michael, our son, was diagnosed.
The night of May 21, 2014, looked like any other that my roommate, Erin, and I would have in our San Francisco apartment. I was busy making the next day's lunch when Erin came home and joined me in the kitchen. We caught each other up on our days, cooked, laughed and planned our next fun adventure. I casually asked how her doctor appointment had gone that day.
I've been a cancer survivor since my bone marrow transplant at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in 2004. I have minimal side effects and continue doing what I love -- spending time with family and friends, cycling, and teaching high school photography and video production. One year after my transplant I did my first Team In Training event, a century ride in Lake Tahoe.
It all started with a race... I began running back in 2011 with the sole purpose of losing weight. I joined a running group and became interested in races, specifically the Nike Women's Half Marathon.
For the past nine years as a physician assistant, I have had the privilege of taking care of acute leukemia, high-risk lymphoma and bone marrow transplant patients at the Intermountain Blood and Marrow Transplant Program.
In the fall of 2009, I rushed my wife, Pam Lewis, to the first of six emergency room visits. As with all of the visits, she was in such acute pain she could not answer the admitting questions coherently. She screamed in pain and scared several nurses in the process. My wife had always had a high threshold of pain, so her screams scared me also.
My Cancer Story/Journey so far:
I was diagnosed 21 years ago at age 44 with low-grade indolent B cell follicular lymphoma.