August 1st, 2020 was the day my sister’s life completely changed.

Two weeks before, Natalie began to feel like she was coming down with something. She was tired, nauseous, and knew she was coming down with something. Thinking she might have Covid-19, she got tested at a local urgent care and kept her distance from her fiancé, Luke, by sleeping in separate rooms. But on this day, the day her life would change forever, she literally could not get out of bed.

About seven o’clock that evening Luke was finally able to convince her to go to the emergency room. Something was really wrong but it wasn’t Covid. By that time she’d been tested twice and both tests came back negative.

At the hospital, they drew her blood and hooked her up to all sorts of beeping machines with blinking lights and buzzers. It was getting late when a nurse told her she was going to be loaded into an ambulance transported to another hospital’s ICU.

“Another hospital? The ICU?” she thought. “Isn’t that where people go when something’s really wrong?”

At the new hospital, as they were hanging the first of the six bags of red blood cells she would end up receiving that night when someone casually told her, “It looks like you might have leukemia. Your white blood count is extremely high and you have almost no red blood cells. I can’t believe you’re awake right now.”

I could only imagine what was going through her mind at that moment: “What? Leukemia? Cancer?! But I’m supposed to have my bachelorette party… I’m supposed to get married in 2 months… We’re supposed to move into our new home… What is happening right now??”

That night her entire life entered some weird medical vortex where normal things like grocery stores and sleeping in her own bed were replaced with regular blood transfusions and thirteen-hour doctor visits. Natalie was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), which is considered one of the most lethal forms of cancer and is very difficult to treat.

She didn’t know it yet, but instead of having a beautiful wedding and starting their life together in her new house, Natalie would spend the next year a state away from home having biopsies, getting chemo, losing her hair, feeling really sick for days without relief and spending weeks at time stuck in a hospital bed. And because of Covid, she and Luke would have to do it alone, unable to see family or friends for months as they kept themselves quarantined for Natalie’s safety.

It would be tough, but Natalie was determined to fight this disease head-on and knew she could beat the challenge.

On September 1st, after spending 25 nights in the hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, she and Luke packed up his car and traveled to The City of Hope, a hospital in Duarte, California, to begin the bone marrow transplant process.

(That’s a really intense treatment that involves chemo, radiation, another month or so stuck in a hospital bed, and then three months of seeing the doctor three times a week.)

She decided that she was still going to get married on her planned date, 10/10/2020, even though she would be right in the middle of one of her hospital stays to receive an intense round of chemotherapy. Some amazing people at the hospital planned the whole wedding and decorated the lobby of the floor she was staying in. Her doctors let the nurses unplug her IV pole for the ceremony while her friends and family were able to watch her tie the knot on Zoom. This definitely was not the wedding she dreamed of when she was a little girl, but she was happy to have her husband and did not complain.

Four months later and after several rounds of chemo, on November 18th, 2020, she was finally ready to undergo her bone marrow transplant. This was a VERY exciting day for everyone because this procedure is the only way to save her life and completely get rid of the cancer forever.

After the procedure, she was in and out of the hospital constantly – living between the hospital’s outpatient housing and being admitted in the hospital for one reason or another for another four months. (Imagine that - eight months without seeing family or friends, without sleeping in your own bed, WITHOUT HAIR!)

She was finally able to move back home to Arizona in March of 2021, but with the condition that she would have to visit the hospital in California once per month so her doctor could monitor her condition.

Not only that, but she would still have to keep away from people and not be able to live a normal life. She had to be very careful because after receiving the transplant, it erased her immune system - she was like a newborn baby. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily get diseases that we all get vaccinated for: polio, measles, shingles, not to mention COVID, which all could be deadly to her. The only people she could have contact with were her husband and her medical team.

She went through every day like a champ and did not complain. She was just so happy to FINALLY be in her own home.

Ten months and three days after showing up to the emergency room, on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021, it was Natalie’s first day back at her job which she was EXTREMELY excited about. She would spend a few days in the office to get caught up and then was planning to work from home. She was so grateful for the opportunity to be back and to stay busy with something besides visiting the doctor. On this day, she felt like her life was finally returning to normal. That morning Natalie told Luke she felt like she beat this terrible disease and she was SO READY to press play on her life again.

That Thursday, May 6th, Natalie started to feel a little strange. She started feeling more fatigued than usual and didn’t have much of an appetite. At first, she tried to brush it off, but in the back of her mind, Natalie knew she felt similar to how she felt when she was first diagnosed with cancer. Her next appointment was scheduled for next Tuesday, May 11th, so for several days of these symptoms, she didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want people to worry.

One week after going back to work, her doctor admitted her to the hospital right after her regularly scheduled appointment because he didn’t like what he saw as he examined her lab results.

On May 12th, 2021, 6 months after her transplant, she found out the most dreadful news. Her doctor showed up in her hospital room unannounced, sat on the foot of her bed, and said, “I do not have good news for you.”

He sat and held her for a few minutes as she wept after hearing his diagnosis.

After 8 months shuttling from hotels to hospitals to outpatient housing, vicious rounds of radiation and chemotherapy with all the nasty side effects that come along with that, the loneliness and isolation of being treated for cancer in an unfamiliar city during a pandemic, facing the fear of dying and feeling the fleeting thrill of victory, the cancer had returned.

It was hard enough for Natalie to hear that she had cancer the first time, let alone that it CAME BACK. She felt like everything she fought for all those months was automatically erased. Natalie would have to start completely over again.

Fast-forward two rounds of chemo and three months later, Natalie received her second bone marrow transplant on August 27th, 2021. She’s got at least a month in the hospital and then another six months or so of going in and out of the hospital as she recovers from the transplant.

We are praying that this time, this horrible disease is finally gone once and for all.

Unfortunately, Natalie was laid off from her job the day before she was admitted for her second transplant due to the length of time it would take her to go back to work. This will also cut off her employer’s contribution to her medical insurance coverage. With paying for COBRA insurance her expenses are through the roof.

Finding out this news right before her second transplant put Natalie and Luke in a very tough spot. Not to mention, Natalie and Luke have to move to California to be closer to her doctor because the recovery from a second bone marrow transplant takes even longer and is even more intense than what she’s already been through.

I am starting this fundraiser for my sister because right now she has enough to figure out without having to worry about how they’re going to pay for all the added expenses of medical care and moving.

Please know that anything helps as they try to navigate through this challenging time, but I have two specific requests for you:

1. Give what you can and forward this to three people you think might be willing to help as well.

2. Consider registering as a life-saving bone marrow donor to help others struck by this horrible disease at Be The Match, the international donor registry used by every bone marrow transplant doctor in the world: https://my.bethematch.org/s/join?language=en_US&joinCode=marrow17&utm_campaign=google_paid&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_content=sitelink_join_the_registry&gclid=CjwKCAjw4KyJBhAbEiwAaAQbE8YvJbNlVqlbpB11E2gcnyodS0AoJJLRgASrp0WwGuj6zl-4d-oVChoCzm0QAvD_BwE

This disease was not something she chose, the disease chose her. Natalie and Luke are going through the hardest, most stressful time they’ve ever been through and will probably ever have to go through. Let’s give them all the support we can.

Thank you and be kind to each other!