Team Marie

Circling Marie's community of family, friends and fans to rally around our MVP for support:

Marie:

The “C” word: Cancer.

It’s been a stressful and emotional few weeks and I’m so grateful to those who’ve been so supportive.

I begin chemotherapy on Monday for a rare but treatable chronic leukemia/non-hodgkin’s lymphoma called Hairy Cell Leukemia(HCL). Some of you know I was my mom’s primary caretaker when I was 21. I lost her from colon cancer a week before her 51st birthday. 5 days later I found my first lump in my breast and while my brother went west to visit family I had my first biopsy and packed up the house. I’ve been afraid of cancer for a long time. It’s scary to be 45 and know that while treatable I have a chronic cancer. Last weekend sorting I found the bag mom used to travel to Sloan Kettering for her treatment. I will be using it now.

Mom's teddy bear aka "Mr. Ted E. Bear" is in my room. And.. most importantly, I am well stocked in flexible straws(metal/silicon) so I don't hurt my neck drinking. God forbid.

I feel her with me. 1000 of us are diagnosed a year with HCL and it impacts mostly those whose assigned sex is male. I am fairly weak and my spleen is growing while the rest of me is shrinking because there simply is not enough room for food. Because of some other challenges it has impacted my liver. I have two rounds of treatment as we kill this MF. When all goes well I should be able to fight off most of the cells and my cancer will transition from the acute stage to the chronic stage. My immune system will be fairly shot for a while and given the lack of mask mandates, lax masking practices, insufficient definition of ‘vaccinated’ from the CDC and being a longhauler I am petrified about getting covid again and whether I can survive another bout of Covid-19 so I will be fairly careful. I've had Evushield has the vaccines no longer protect me. I’m an asthmatic with other complex conditions and we have no idea how long covid will impact this. I have amazing friends and some will be helping me run a Caring Bridge site. I simply cannot keep up with communication and need to be super careful about self care. (Thanks Kelly, Clara and Jayne) Clara is point on the Meal Train and as I learn how to ask for help and have time to set everything up we will add more to the site. This has moved really fast and I’m grateful that I am starting treatment less than two weeks after diagnosis.

Prayers, support and help is appreciated.

You can sign up for updates at caring bridge below and there are some ways to help: https://www.caringbridge.org/profile/32518540