Hi! I'm Michelle.

I'm 32 years old and currently living in the Philippines. I'm raising money to help fund my current treatment. I have B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (Philadelphia negative), which recently relapsed for the second time in December 2024. To control the leukemia back and extend my life, I must restart chemotherapy under a more rigorous relapse protocol.

However, the cost of treatment, transfusions, medicines, hospital bills, doctors' fees, and cost of living are overwhelming to insurmountable for me and my family this time. I am hoping that with this campaign, I can reach more people in the global community to help me raise the necessary amount I need to sustain my treatment.

Whatever positive action you take out of this campaign—whether you donate monetarily or in kind, or share this campaign with your friends and families, or send a prayer for my healing—consider it an extension of my life.

If you reached reading up to this point, I thank you deeply and truly. But if you have more time to spare, feel free to read more about my background and when it all started:

2016

I was first diagnosed with B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in May 2016. I was just 23 years old then, working as a medical technologist in a hospital, and was about to go to medical school in a few months. A month before my diagnosis, I suddenly became generally anemic—pale, weak, no appetite, and having trouble sleeping.

After a referral, a bone marrow biopsy was done on me, which confirmed I had leukemia. Because of the diagnosis, medical school didn't happen, and I was sent to chemotherapy immediately the next week, right after receiving the diagnosis. The doctor said it was treatable, but treatment shouldn't be delayed. It was acute, and so was the treatment approach.

In a flash, my life completely changed and has never been the same since.

2016 - 2019

Thankfully, I went into remission in August of the same year. I remained in remission until I finished the maintenance phase for 2.5 years, that is, in May 2019. My last bone marrow biopsy in June 2019 showed that I was still in remission and MRD (minimal residual disease) negative. I was clear, in short. Slowly, I went back to living my life, but it was different this time. As the cancer community knows, living life after cancer is a "new normal." We can never go back to who we were before we got sick. I would say navigating life after cancer was one of the most difficult paths I took. No one tells you what you should and shouldn't do. No more doctor's appointments and no more chemotherapy to make sure the cancer doesn't come back. There is no medical handbook on how to live life after cancer and its treatment.

What made that part extra difficult was losing my mom to leukemia (AML) in 2018. Yes, she sadly succumbed to the disease, too. But we had to move on, slowly—and we did.

I went back to work after mom's death and traveled a lot locally in 2019—sometimes solo, but most of the time with family and friends. I went to the gym for the first time; I ran, tried new hobbies, and met new people. Basically, I tried to slowly immerse myself back in the society I was once somehow isolated from due to my illness.

2020 - 2023

In 2020, I finally decided to leave work to pursue my dream of furthering my studies. I have always wanted to go back to school—to start fresh and catch up with the things I missed during my sick years.

I enrolled in law school at a local school at home. I was so scared and excited. I didn't know if I was making the right decision. As pandemic time hit, I was left at home with more reading time and less exposure to people, again. Everyone knows how rigorous the training in law school is. But after the first years of tears, I ended up loving the study of law.

I was inspired. I thought, if I became a lawyer, I could use it to give back and help the community. I could finally pay forward to other fellow cancer patients the same support that I once received. That was my ultimate dream.

I made studying the law an act of worship to God, who healed me. I thought, as a student, the best way to help the people in the future is to study the law well now. In law school, I met a lot of brilliant, like-minded people. Some of them have become family. I was happy. I met my current life partner there, too, who up to now is very supportive of me. As life moved on, I slowly made plans for the future—wedding, building a family, etc. Just like what a healthy, living person would do. But, as they say, leukemia is the thief of the night. I relapsed. The leukemia came back in December 2023. That was the first one. All plans were put on hold, even law school, and I had to move to Cebu City, Philippines, for my treatment.

After being in remission for 7 years and out of treatment for 4 years, here we go again.

2024

Gladly, after my first bone marrow biopsy in February 2024, I was declared to be in remission again! I was still responding to the treatment! For the rest of the year, I tried my best to stay on it. All 3 biopsies I had in 2024—February, May, and October—all showed I was on remission and MRD negative.

But then again, the thief of the night kept coming back. The leukemia relapsed again in December 2024. I was devastated. I felt all the efforts I put in for the past year just to remain in remission were gone to waste.

2025

Now, I am a very eligible candidate for a bone marrow transplant. For relapsed marrow, it is best to have the bone marrow transplant, or what we call the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In other words, remove my sick marrow and replace it with a healthy one from a well-matched donor.

I knew I couldn't afford such a risky but life-saving procedure, which is only performed in certain hospitals in Manila, Philippines. I do not have a massive 3 to 4 Million Philippine Pesos (52, 000 to 69, 000 USD) to go through it. And I do not have a donor, yet. But my guts... I am amenable to doing it and eager to find ways to raise the money.

Currently, I am back to chemotherapy under a rigorous relapse protocol. Which is very challenging as of the moment because of my pancytopenia, meaning low blood count. What presents to be the most challenging is my platelet count.

As I go through chemotherapy and other related procedures, I constantly need platelet transfusions. My marrow as of the moment is not producing one, making me very transfusion dependent. This alone presents a lot of challenges physically and financially. Physically, because I must constantly look for platelet donors. Platelets are viable only for 5 days, so they must be harvested freshly from healthy donors. Financially, because a platelet unit via single-donor platelet apheresis is one of the most expensive blood components.

Thank you for taking time to finish reading my story. For now, what I do hope the most is your positive reaction: DONATE and/or SHARE this campaign. Thank you very much, and blessings to all of you.