Dear Friends,

Today marks the last day of Blood Cancer Awareness Month!

For those who don’t know, this past year has been very difficult for my family. My older brother, Gabriel (Gabby) Agudo, was diagnosed with Stage IV Diffuse Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma at 23 years old. Lymphoma is a type of blood cancer that originates in the immune system. Unfortunately, Gabby has a very aggressive type of cancer. His illness initially started with back pain. He then lost his mobility one day, which we discovered to be a tumor in his spine. Although he had an emergency surgery to remove the tumor, his cancer had already metastasized to his brain, kidney, and pancreas. Since December 2020, he has been receiving various rounds of chemotherapy treatment, but due to the aggressive nature of his lymphoma, the cancer cells have not responded to his initial treatment regimens and instead, have continued to spread all over his body. Currently, the plan is for him to receive a few more rounds of salvage chemotherapy, which is a more aggressive form of treatment, and then hopefully a bone marrow transplant.

As many of you know, Gabby has been an integral member of our family. As the eldest son, he courageously took on the role as the father figure of the house ever since we lost our dad at a young age—when Gabby was four, I was three, and my mom was still pregnant with our youngest brother (who was born two days after our dad passed). In honor of September being Blood Cancer Awareness Month and Gabby’s recent 24th birthday (on September 25), any donations made here will help his cancer treatment journey. For his birthday, Gabby hopes to take this opportunity to raise money to support blood cancer research. Hence, a portion of these funds will also be donated to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), whose mission is to “cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families” through research, patient access, and policy and advocacy reform.

I would also like to take this time to encourage people to join the Be The Match Bone Marrow registry. For patients diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, and other life-threatening diseases, a bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be their best or only hope for a cure. Yet 70% of patients who need a transplant do not have a fully matched donor in their family. They depend on Be The Match to find a match to save their life. Who knows—you might even be the match for Gabby! :)

You can learn more about the registry here: https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-bone-marrow/join-the-marrow-registry/

Lastly, our family would like to extend our utmost gratitude to everyone who has supported us on this journey of recovery so far. Your thoughts and prayers truly mean a lot!

Thank you very much!!

Love,

Anjelique