Blessed with a baby, cursed with Leukemia

The remission is over and leukemia is back In May 2019 we found out I’m pregnant - a miracle since every single doctor I spoke with told me it would be impossible to get pregnant again after all the chemo I got in order to put the leukemia in remission the first time in 2017. At 25 weeks pregnant we found out the leukemia came back. Thankfully, not as aggressively as last time and I was able to continue the pregnancy until 32 weeks and 2 days. Lukas was born on November 14, 2019 and has been in the NICU ever since. The ironic part is that 2 years ago on 11/14, I was admitted to Loyola and told I have leukemia and this date wasn’t one I ever wanted engraved in my head. But now it’ll forever be engraved in my heart. Although the last time was anything but easy  as Leo was about 4 months old and I had to very abruptly leave him home this time it’s one million times harder.

I was really waiting and praying and hoping that the second anniversary of remission would come at the end of this year which would decrease my chances of relapse by about 50%. Unfortunately at the end of September the news was much different.

Because this is a relapse I will need a bone marrow transplant this time. Nothing scary, not a major surgery it’s simply a blood transfusion but comes with its side effects. Then recovery period is unknown it may be 2-6 weeks in the hospital depending on each person, how the blood cells engraft in my bone marrow and hopefully my blood results will start to improve. Thankfully the transplant coordinator was able to find 2 potential matches for me not perfect but 11/12 is pretty good, I won’t complain. Because I have to have the transplant this time my hospital stay and time away now from two babies will unfortunately be extended. Greg (the best husband and father in the world) is trying to shuffle the hours in his day between working full time, home to be with Leo at least for a little bit, coming to the hospital to see Lukas (I can’t see him for now while going through chemo, I also have a cold that I can’t get rid of because my immune system is down), and then coming to see me. He unfortunately does not get paid time off work so it’s really hard to balance where he should spend time.

Between the the bills from my last hospital stay, Lukas’s NICU stay, my hospital stay now and then the bone marrow transplant and another hospital stay we are beginning to drown  and we don’t know when all this will be over. So once again we are asking for a little bit of help.  At least Greg can maybe take a day off during the week not having to worry about a smaller check from work to visit me for longer than 30min, visit Lukas since no one else can and although this NICU has amazing nurses there’s nothing like knowing dad’s close. Maybe he can be home with Leo a little bit more who this time understands way too much  and sees that I’m not home and Greg’s barely home.

He also picks up random side jobs after his work to compensate for me not working but again that just takes him away from the three of us. I also thought this would be a good place for our updates :)

Any help will be greatly appreciated and if you cannot or do not want to donate I encourage you to register at BeTheMatch.com you never know who’s life you may be saving.

It only takes a cheek swab. ❤️




Love you All,




<3 Joanna, Greg, Leo, and Lukas <3