Leukemia is a scary word, but it needn’t be.

I was diagnosed 2001, and I'm still here.

I'm originally from North Carolina. Currently live with my wife in the mountains of Virginia. We have one son. He's about 45 minutes away. He and his wife and their three kids.

Over the years I’ve had quite a number of kidney stones and kidney infections. I did have such an infection in January, 2001…

… and had a very astute physician in the emergency room. He ran some bloodwork and, so, he came back, and he said, “You know, you’ve got a severe kidney infection, but I think something else is going on.” He said, “Your white count is extremely high.” He said, “I think you really need an oncologist…should take a look.” I did a bone marrow test and confirmed I had CLL.

I had never heard of CLL and it had never crossed my mind that I might have leukemia. First thing that crossed my mind – what happens to my wide? You know, I hadn’t planned on not being here.

That was the beginning of my CLL journey. I had to start educating myself then about what is CLL? What have I got to expect?

My wife and I, you know, talked about it and I said, “Well, it’s you know, it’s a bump in the road. We’re going to deal with it. We’re going to keep it going.” And so that’s what we did.

In 2019, everything sort of went, went downhill. My platelets started back down. I started losing weight and feeling really fatigued a lot. My hematologist decided it was time to start treatment. And so, we started on a BTK inhibitor.

I was on that until August of 2021. Everything seemed to be working pretty well.

And then my blood pressure started rising. In fact, I ended up in the hospital. My cardiologist thought it was advisable to stop the stop the BTK inhibitor medication. And he contacted the hematologist with that recommendation.

She said, “Well, I’m going to leave it up to you—what to do.” And I said, “Well, I want to stop it, you know, I’m going to stop.” And she said, “Okay, so we’ll stop.” And there was a span of about a week I didn’t take anything, and after that week, I stated CALQUENCE.

Overall, it’s been, it’s been, okay. My bloodwork is looking better, my white count is within normal range and platelets are a little low still, but closer to normal. I am quite diligent about taking CALQUENCE every day at the same time, twice a day.

And just in case I doze off or something in front of the TV, I have an alarm set on my phone. As far as the energy, I feel pretty good most of the time. I might say I have bad days. I’m sure everybody does, but I keep going.

CALQUENCE is a prescription oral treatment for adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma. May cause serious side effects including: serious infections, bleeding problems, decrease in blood cell count, new cancers, and heart rhythm problems. Some may lead to death. Tell your doctor if you experience infections such as flu-like symptoms; unexpected bleeding such as blood in your stool or urine; or heart rhythm problems such as fast or irregular heartbeat. Use sun protection when outside.

Please see full Prescribing Information, including Patient Information.