With my 53rd(!!!) birthday fast approaching, I’m feeling so grateful for my health, my husband, my family, my friends and my life. I'm officially MRD-negative which is incredible. But I'm not going to lie, the last few years have been difficult. Mentally and physically, I've been through it! Being forced to examine your own mortality really does something to a person. With a ton of therapy with my amazing therapist, I started to remember that life is beautiful, albeit short. I try to hug and tell my loved ones that I love them more often these days. I'm going to continue to plan and dream of the future. See, that’s where I previously got stuck. I stopped believing that I had much of a future. But then I realized no one is guaranteed anything! So I'm going to do the things. ALL the things I say!

Now for some really huge, HUGE news:

I’ve decided that I want to do a really big thing. I have been invited to travel to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with a team comprised of Myeloma survivors, caregivers, doctors, and researchers this coming September!!!

This will be a challenge not only physically, but mentally. This incredible opportunity requires a 16 week training program to prepare myself to physically make the trek and deal with the altitude changes. It’s a good thing that my good friend Regina Norton Greenfield will be coming with me! This incredible woman is a nurse anesthetist from Germany and is someone that I am so very fortunate to call my friend. We share the same Myeloma specialist Dr. Nooka of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. We have been there for each other through bone marrow biopsies, bone marrow transplants, and all the other scary cancer stuff. And now we are going to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro together! We are both doing great after our transplants and staying myeloma free with the help of our ongoing maintenance treatments. The treatments we are on have only come on the market in the last few years. Just a couple of decades ago this disease was a death sentence. The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation has been instrumental in bringing new revolutionary treatments to market that are prolonging lives. Now people are living longer and more normal lives with a cancer that while incurable, is now considered to be highly treatable. As a patient, I am so so grateful.

Please consider donating to our fundraiser linked below. And I’d love it if you would consider sharing this post. We will be updating throughout our journey. I can't wait to share with y'all!

Thank you friends for reading! 🙏 🥰