Hi everyone, my name is Tim, and this year a week before my 33rd birthday, I received news I never in a million years would have expected - a new diagnosis of acute leukemia (T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, to be exact). I had been feeling progressively run-down over the last several weeks but was in no way expecting this sort of life change when I got my blood work drawn, prompting me to be emergently hospitalized to start treatment.

Obviously being so fresh I am still processing this diagnosis, and there are a lot of unknowns out there. But to focus on the positives first, what this journey has reaffirmed is how truly amazing all the people in my life are (my partner Ariel, my family, my friends, my colleagues), and how incredibly blessed I am to be surrounded by such a strong support network. The amount of texts, care packages, and revolving door of visitors I've had is overwhelming in truly the best possible way. I also have an amazing medical team guiding my care and feel so incredibly fortunate to be at Hopkins (even if it does mean I run into the occasional former coworker or patient of mine! haha).

Now for the slightly less positive, this medical journey is going to have it's ups and downs, which makes any sort of life planning unpredictable. The hope is that I will mostly move to a day hospital-type situation, with the ability to spend the rest of my time at home, but there will definitely be times that repeat hospitalizations will happen, and obviously with intensive chemotherapy my ability to attend any important life events outside of virtually is extremely limited. The anticipated plan is for many months of chemo throughout the year, with years of maintenance in cases of remission (fingers crossed) versus alternatively a bone marrow transplant. Secondarily, with this in mind comes the loss of my ability to work, and to be honest even as a physician I have no way to predict what these medical bills may amount to.

Here's where GoFundMe comes into this. I want to use this platform to keep my circle informed when I don't have the ability to independently reach out myself, but also build an additional safety net for the months and years to come to help support myself and Ariel through this. I am deeply grateful for any help you can offer, whether it’s a donation, sharing my story, or simply sending good thoughts my way. Other things you can do that are not strictly financial include donating to your local blood bank (a special shout out if you're a B+ blood type like me) and registering to see if you could ever be a bone marrow donor match, not specifically for me but for anyone else in my situation. I'm not entirely sure how the donor search process will go (timing-wise) specifically for me, but will keep this updated when I do know.

There's definitely a million more things to say but for now I'm going to leave it at this. But just know I'm working on staying hopeful and positive (B+ to be exact), and I love you all.