In 2013 I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer called "myelofibrosis." This cancer causes a person's blood production to run out of control - first with high counts that created fibrosis scaring in the bone marrow space and then with decreasing counts to the point that you don't make enough blood to survive.
For seven years I did pretty well with the newly available JAK inhibitors, but then my counts began to drop and my prognosis became "high risk." The only solution at this point is an allogenic stem cell transplant. The transplant itself is also high risk and difficult - but it is worth a try.
My wife and I were married in 1978. We have two adult children and four grandchildren.