Jay’s battle with leukemia

My name is Jamie Vize and my nephew Jay received a devastating leukemia diagnosis last week. He will be in the hospital for at least 36 days and we are hoping to help him out while he receives chemo and is fighting this awful disease.

Here is Jay’s account of what happened:

Wednesday May 3 I woke up in my own bed just like any other day. I had been feeling fatigued at work, getting bloody noses, and had been bruising all over my body for the past few weeks. I decided to go to the doctor. They ran their tests and I went to work and waited for the results. Within an hour I got a call. They told me to sit down and go somewhere quiet to talk. I needed to be admitted to the hospital asap because my platelets(what clots your blood) levels were critically low. That was the first time I was told there were leukemia cells in my blood.

As of yesterday my bone marrow biopsy results came back and concluded I have acute promyelocytic leukemia (APLM). With in a day I went from going to work and sleeping in my own bed to having to be in the hospital for at least 6 weeks undergoing chemotherapy and can’t leave. Thankfully APLM has a high long term remission success rate. I didn’t even know for sure if I was gonna post anything but cancer is more common than people think and there needs to be more awareness. It can happen to anyone at any age. It’s wasn’t hereditary and there wasn’t anything I could have done to prevent it. It was just the cards dealt.

Cancer. You never really think it’s going to happen to you until it does. Always appreciate the little things in life and the people that love you. Never take anything for granted. I am extremely blessed to have an amazing family, friends, coworkers, girlfriend, and her amazing family as well. I’ve had so many amazing doctors patient care techs, nurses, and so many other amazing medical professionals helping me that usually go unnoticed. Always caring, extremely nice, always informative and willing to explain. They’ve all done their best to make me feel cared for and comfortable. I don’t know where I would be without any of them. And I give thanks and pray every night. And I can sure as hell tell you I’m not the same person I was last week. God is good and I have been truly blessed.