Introduction

I’m from California. I love the ocean. I love hiking. I’m very artistic and creative, and I like to find careers that allow me to utilize that creativity. I was a preschool teacher for many, many years.

I’m a single mom. I’m kind of obsessed with my kid. My world revolves around her. [It’s] really special that I get to relive all my favorite things from my childhood with my daughter.

She is incredible and very smart. She’s got an old heart, an old soul, and she’s determined to be a doctor or a surgeon so we’re working on that. And we have two cats.

They brought me in and said, “We don’t know what’s going on just yet, but because you’re 18, we need to ask you if you have a DNR.” I said, “I don’t have my driver’s license yet.” She said, “That’s not what that means,” and explained to me what a DNR was.

Because I was 18 and really sick, I had two options: (1) sign off my rights to my parents, be completely admitted to the hospital with unknown circumstances, and let my family make decisions and choices on my behalf because I was going downhill very quickly; or (2) make my own decisions and sign a DNR.

I panicked, didn’t really know how to respond to that, and immediately signed my rights to my parents. Then the rest was a big blur.

They told me that I had a less than 25% chance of making it through the night, let alone the week… I hadn’t even gotten my driver’s license or my high school diploma yet and everything was just ripped away.

Diagnosis

From that moment on, I spent about seven months in the hospital. I was in [the] ICU, hanging to life. All my friends from high school were called. All the teachers. Everybody just took off and flooded the hospital.

At the time of my diagnosis, they told me that I had a less than 25% chance of making it through the night, let alone the week. I was going to need two platelet transfusions and two blood transfusions right then and there just to get me stabilized.

If I made it through the week, there was a 50% chance the treatments would work [and] if they did, there would be a 50% chance of developing [a] secondary cancer. The treatments would cause me to be infertile because there is not enough time or science to consider any fertility-saving options.

I hadn’t even gotten my driver’s license or my high school diploma yet and everything was just ripped away.

I’m a very religious person so it was a very religiously-powered, emotional roller coaster. I clung to my faith, used music as therapy, and practiced mindset mindfulness.

The hardest part was that because I was 18, I was the oldest kid in pediatric oncology. When other kids came by my room, they saw my cheerleading graduation pictures [and] the artwork that my friends left, and they came to me for advice.

I remember hearing one of them say as she was leaving my room, “Daddy, I didn’t know cheerleaders could get leukemia. I thought just kids got it.” Hearing that and not knowing where the hell I’m going to end up was just gut-wrenching. I have no other option. I’m not done yet.

My oncologist, who’s still friends with me today, [would] come over every morning. “Are you still fighting with me? I’m fighting for you. Are you still fighting with me?” And I would tell him, “Yeah, absolutely.”

Every time there was news that this treatment didn’t work or that we had to try this other chemo because it was stronger, my answer was always, “Whatever you have to do.”

When I think back to when I was going through this, I wish I heard more stories to hold on to because all I was holding on to was trying to keep it together because these little, itty bitty pediatric kids are looking up to me.

Treatment

I remember that first blood transfusion, that first bone marrow biopsy, and [the] spinal tap. I remember being in bed, machines going berserk, and telling my mom I couldn’t breathe. Then waking up months later, seeing my reflection in the hospital window of this bald person.

[I] had a patch over my eye because I had an infection. I had an infection from my port. I had an infection from my PICC line. Tubes everywhere. I was completely bedridden.

It was really late at night. I woke up and kept leaning over. My mom says, “What are you doing?” I said, “Who is that person staring at me?” And she goes, “Where?” And I said, “Right there. There’s this weird person staring at me.” And she goes, “Honey, that’s you.” She hit my morphine pump and I fell asleep.

I woke up and my friends and my sisters had made [a] list of all the famous bald people in the world and they put my name at the top of the list. Then they all started dyeing their hair purple.

It just swept over me. I was engulfed in this environment.

Because it was 2002, it was very hush-hush, especially after the recovery. There was nobody to talk to.

The therapist would come by and would be like, “You look really upset today. Is there something bothering you?” And I’m like, “Hmm. Hmm. It’s raining.” I would be so sarcastic. I went to sarcasm to cope because it was so extreme.

I was completely comatose and had about four or five IV poles.

They had to move it. They put it [in the chest area] and it stayed stable for a year. But I had all these other infections now that picked up staph and it was just a mess. By [that] time, they had finally figured out the right chemotherapy to combat the leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia is a really fast-growing, aggressive cancer. They blasted me with doxorubicin, sent me over to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, and blasted me with even more chemotherapy. I think the last round was a week’s worth of chemotherapy in 24 hours. It was insane.

I had mucositis. I threw up my esophageal lining. It was a mess.

Bone marrow transplant

After, it was basically wiping out my immune system. I was completely immunocompromised. I was in double-door isolation for months. I couldn’t have visitors. I couldn’t see my friends.

All of my friends are off in college, living their dream, and I’m in prison, in the hospital. I graduated high school in [the] intensive care unit on speakerphone. My sisters accepted my diploma for me.

Most of the time in the hospital, I was clinging to life, bedridden, and in critical care. I was diagnosed in May. By September of that year, I had finally been prepared with chemotherapy and total body radiation to have a bone marrow transplant from my sister.

I have three sisters and lucky for me, two of them matched me perfectly, which is incredible because I’m mixed race. I’m Mexican and Italian so if they didn’t match, it would have been a nightmare.

I learned how to flush my own lines, mostly because I begged them to not make me come in every single day, twice a day, to flush my lines.

I was allowed to leave but because I was still so fragile, I had to be within one mile of the hospital for any situation. I stayed at the Ronald McDonald House in Palo Alto.

I had IV pumps that I had to continue doing. I learned how to flush my own lines, mostly because I begged them to not make me come in every single day, twice a day, to flush my lines. I told them, “I’m 18. Can you just teach me? I’m off [the] hospital campus. You can teach me.” They taught me how to do it.

I stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for about three months, came home for my 19th birthday, and started to rebuild my life from there.

I was immunocompromised and neutropenic for about a year so I was in complete isolation.

We’ve been monitoring my blood work every 3 to 6 months for the last 20 years. I have chronic anemia and my immune system is not my age. I’m 38. My immune system is only 20 years old so that meant going back to work was really difficult because anywhere I worked, I instantly got sick. 

I [was] already [burdened by] chronic issues from leukemia, but now I have a sensitive immune system. It was 2002 so not a lot of people really understood that. I lost a lot of jobs because my health was so fragile and it made me look like I wasn’t a consistent employee.

The ripple effects are still felt emotionally, physically, and financially. Honestly, I didn’t start to cope and deal with my leukemia until I got breast cancer. I packed it away. I didn’t know where to go to cope with it.

From the time I was diagnosed, they told me that the treatment will cause infertility. I remember asking them right away, “How do we save my fertility?” They told me flat out, “We don’t have enough time to do what we need to do to save your fertility options.” And in 2002, they really didn’t have the science backing it too much either.

They had to prepare me for the worst because they really didn’t know either and I respect that. It was hard to process. Being told at 18 that you’re not going to be able to have kids then finally being able to recover and be free, you go a little crazy. You’re like, “Screw the world! I’m going to love everybody then and mask my pain with that.” 

I went from being this pure, Catholic-raised, Christian girl where I’m told to respect my body, that my body is a temple, and nobody is to touch it or violate it to wide open, everybody touching me, everybody feeling things, everybody looking, taking pictures, cutting me open, putting in this, putting in that, and it was like, “What happened to this temple that I was?” It was really hard to rebound from that and to have all these scars associated with it, too.

Getting pregnant against all odds

I was off my medications for one year and got pregnant. Didn’t know. Started feeling some symptoms.

I go to my doctor, [who] has been my doctor for 15 years. She knows me very well. She’s doing the ultrasound and she’s already having the conversation with me. “Okay, Renée, if it’s a tumor, it’s going to probably look kind of clustered and it’s going to look like… Oh.” And I said, “Kind of like O? Like it’s going to be like an O shape?” And she goes, “No, look!”

She turns the monitor and grabbed my leg and said, “Did you see that?” I said, “Yeah, what is it?” And she goes, “It’s a baby!” And I said, “Whose?” And she goes, “Yours!” And I said, “How?” She’s like, “Well, you know how, but you’re pregnant!” And I was like, “No, I’m not. I can’t be.”

She had me sit up to see and she goes, “Renée, you’re pregnant.” I’m like, “No… You’re sure?” She’s looking at it and goes, “Oh my goodness.” I said, “What?” She goes, “You’re 14 weeks! You’re having a baby in six months!” “What?! What?!”

It was the most confusing day of my life. I had to call all of my doctors. I called Lucile Packard. All of them were like, “Wait. What?” As soon as it settled in, they all said, “We can’t wait to see our baby.” Everybody said Ava was theirs.

That became this quest of, “What am I getting myself into? What is my health? How does my health impact this baby? Is she going to have any side effects because of what I’ve been through?” It was really interesting to be able to go down that door and get in that space of all these different conversations.

Words of advice

Hold on with an iron grip. I believe in manifestation. I believe that our universe is listening to us. If you think it, believe it, pray it, hold on to it, eat and breathe it, and obsess about it in a positive way, you’d be surprised at [the] results. It might not be exactly the way that you planned it, but it’ll be close.

We all came from stardust so to be where we are right now took a lot of work by forces that know you better than you know [yourself].

Does it hurt? Does it suck? Yeah. But sometimes, when things don’t work out the way that you plan them, it’s because it wasn’t your plan. Understanding that is powerful. Knowing there will be a time [when] you will look back and remember when you prayed for the things that you have.

Hold on. Keep asking questions.

When things don’t work out the way that you plan them, it’s because it wasn’t your plan and understanding that is powerful.

I wish I had people that were older that came to my bedside and told me their stories. For me, it was an eight-year-old little girl and she’s still my soul sister to this day.

We need to eliminate the shame of sharing our personal health issues and that we shouldn’t talk about this. It is private, but it’s also very emotionally deep. If we don’t talk about this kind of stuff, it will [have a] ripple effect and impact the rest of our lives.

When we talk about it, it kind of clears those clouds so that that little sliver of light gets in. It’s all you need. Just a little sliver of light.

We go through difficult things in life but to hear that somebody else went through it is comforting… When we talk about it, it kind of clears those clouds so that that little sliver of light gets in. It’s all you need. Just a little sliver of light.