Support Ben's Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Journey

On Monday 6/24, my little brother Ben went to the ER for shoulder pain that was preventing him from sleeping the night before. In the ER he had a shoulder X-ray, ultrasound, a full body ct and a lot of blood work. After all that, an oncologist came to deliver the news that at 21, Ben has Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. He was admitted to inpatient care that night due to his extremely high white blood cell count and was just finally able to go home 7/5. Since being admitted for inpatient care, Ben has had a bone marrow biopsy, and when the surgeon went to biopsy his shoulder mass, she ended up removing a lymph node that his white blood cells had attacked, multiple blood transfusions.. The results from those show that his shoulder mass is cancerous and CML. We have heard from the doctors that they haven't ever seen a white blood cell count as high as his.. The good news is that Ben is in the chronic phase of his CML diagnosis, which is pretty remarkable and not what the doctors were predicting. He is now on a chemo pill to help manage his CML that he will have to take daily for years, while he has outpatient care in Boston to figure out a long term plan of treatment after this chemo pill. He will be seeing his local oncologist very frequently and getting blood work done to make sure his CML is not progressing and everything is looking good. It is rare for someone, especially as young as Ben to get diagnosed with this and also extremely rare that he would get a CML tumor.

 While we are SO thankful that he is not more progressed in his diagnosis, this is still a heavy diagnosis to receive at his age, with a financial burden for many years. Ben is an independent, respectful young adult who cares about his career in banking. He started giving back to the YMCA and volunteering to coach young kids in the same basketball program he grew up in playing in this past winter. Due to Doctors orders, Ben will be out of work for a bit while he adjusts to his chemo medication and what life looks like trying to manage this.   

 Any contribution, no matter the size will make a difference to Ben. We appreciate the support, prayers, positive thoughts and encouragement.