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Richard’s Story

Site created on November 7, 2023

Richard was recently diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, called mature NK/T cell Lymphoma. This is not his story, but merely a short chapter of his life in which he will be able to say that he/we beat cancer. It is a joint effort among our family and friends but we will get through this. I'm sure everyone has questions about the specifics of this disease, and want to give you some background to help alleviate anxieties around what this means for him and his life. FYI google is not helpful and will only scare you. This is a very rare and aggressive cancer, but aggressive also means it responds well to treatment. We are under the care of Dr. Kiwan and the whole Sutter team and could not be in better hands. He will be off work for the next 8 months or longer. The plan: Richard will do 6 rounds of chemo. 1 round is 1 day of chemo and 3 weeks of recovery. So after 4.5 months of chemo he will get a PET scan to see if the cancer is in remission. Once the cancer is gone (in remission), he can go for his bone transplant. They will try to do a bone marrow transplant using his own marrow, but if they are unable to, they will try for a bone marrow transplant from his brother. If he is not a match, then he will be on the transplant list. He will have to be in the hospital for a month with the transplant and then will have another couple months of recovery after that. If the cancer is not gone after 6 rounds of chemo, he will go on to harsher chemo rounds and will be enrolled in clinical trials at UCSF until it's gone. Then he could go for the bone marrow transplant. The good news is: if everything goes well, he could be completely cured in 8 months, which is the best case scenario. He is young, healthy, incredibly positive, and beyond determined. If anyone could beat this thing, it would be him! I will be updating this website periodically. Feel free to reach out to us. Thanks for the support!

Newest Update

Journal entry by Baba Ajayi — Dec 20, 2023

Best Christmas gift ever! So we got news that Richard has a genetic marker that indicates that a bone marrow transplant is no longer necessary for him! A board of 8 oncologists met and made this unanimous decision. They have increased the number of chemo rounds from 4 to now 6 rounds. Richard will have an 80% chance of being completely cured after these 6 rounds. We are over the moon relieved and excited to get back to normal life sooner than we had anticipated. Lots of hope, faith and love this holiday season!! Thank you sooo much for the enormous show of support we have received from so many. We are so grateful for every amazing person in our lives. Happy Holidays!!

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