I am a mom of four, married for 22 years, and was recently diagnosed with a very rare leukemia/lymphoma. I am a licensed speech-language pathologist, health coach, and have my own podcast. I began treatment in January of this year and will follow treatment with a bone marrow transplant.
Twenty years ago I did two things that shaped my life.
I am a teacher from Texas. My journey to Team and Training wasn’t immediate. I moved to Texas from Louisiana. When I moved to Texas, I decided to start running to meet people and to help with my homesickness.
I was diagnosed with stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) in December 2020, but at the time, it was considered to be "indolent." That quickly changed in late February 2021 when I experienced intussusception, a painful telescoping of the bowel into itself requiring hospitalization.
My world started to turn upside down in January of 2019 after starting to exercise and trying to lose weight. At first, I thought I had pulled a muscle in my leg. The cramping continued to increase and turned into radiating bone pain. I went to get an x-ray to make sure nothing was broken.
In July of 2009, I was diagnosed with small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) after a biopsy of the lymph nodes in my neck. Of course, I did what everyone says not to do. I went online to read about it. I read there was no cure, and the average lifespan after diagnosis was 10 years.
My name is Amanda, and I am a stage 4b classical multicellularity Hodgkin lymphoma (CHL) survivor. It all started after spring break of my junior year of high school. I was on a ski trip when I noticed my feet were more itchy than normal. I figured it was from the boots.
I have leukemia/lymphoma and have been fighting this illness for seven years. I became ill in 2011 but made somewhat of a recovery until 2015 when I got really sick (upper respiratory issues) that took the medical system in Las Vegas more than a year to diagnose as leukemia.
