Support Brianna's Fight Against Lymphoma #TEAMBRI

As many of you know, Brianna was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a rare type of blood cancer that affects the body’s lymphatic and immune systems before spreading throughout the body.

The road to diagnosis has been a tough one; Brianna has undergone countless procedures, surgeries, scans, and doctors’ appointments over the past few months. Yet, throughout this grueling process, Brianna’s remarkable spirit and resilience have shone through. We’ve all watched in awe as she’s cracked jokes and somehow maintained her sunny, light-hearted disposition despite what she’s facing.

However, Brianna’s fight has only just begun. In June, she began a rigorous chemotherapy regimen which is expected to continue for ~6 months. The journey ahead will be challenging for Brianna as she navigates the physical, mental and financial impacts of battling cancer. Insurance will help, but we’re quickly learning that many medical expenses (e.g., fertility preservation) are not covered. Outside of medical expenses, Brianna will also need to bear the heavy weight of costs for things like complementary therapies, synthetic wigs, and other items to make recovery more comfortable.

To know Brianna is to love her. We know Brianna has an army of family, friends, coworkers, students and others touched by her story who want to support her. She’s ready to fight, but she needs our help: Every donation, thought or prayer will help ease the burden of this journey on Brianna and her family. Thank you in advance for your generosity and support.

For those of you who don’t know Brianna, we’d like to share a little bit about what it’s like to know and love her:

We’ll start with her humor, because within a short time of knowing her, she will make almost anyone laugh… like true, cry-laugh. She carries a roster of friends from different circles and life-chapters because she holds onto her friends for life. She has a special talent for “showing up” when it matters most -- for her family, her friends, and her students. She’s annoyingly humble, sneakily achieving incredible things, like getting her masters by age 24, winning awards for her research, landing highly-competitive jobs -- all the while redirecting the spotlight to everyone but herself. She’s refreshingly honest and never shies away from speaking her mind, even if it’s not what you want to hear (and in the case of outfit advice… well, she’s never one to hold back!) Fun is in her nature -- she can find the fun in ANYTHING as she radiates an infectious enthusiasm for life. She’s a force to be reckoned with and incredibly resilient. She’s everything to her family, friends and loved ones.

Most importantly, she’s ready to KICK CANCER'S ASS!