Content Outline/Me

I'm Malcolm Gin. You can see me talk about some of my identity groups in the Positioning page.

I was diagnosed with B-Type Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia when I was 52 years old. Before that my doctor and I thought it was an Asthma flareup.

But when bloodwork came back that showed my white blood cells were about 50 times higher than normal, I got an immediate referral to hematology-oncology, got a heart function scan (to determine my fitness and ability to hold up to the planned chemo treatments), and got a central venous catheter installed (for the treatments and transfusions themselves). I was admitted to the hospital about 4 days after my diagnosis and stayed there for 15 days for my first round of HyperCVAD chemotherapy.

After two rounds of HyperCVAD, even though I showed progress, I didn't show enough, so I got a referral to Stanford Medical Center for a stem cell transplant.

We found a valid donor from my cousins (it was a low chance - I was very lucky), and I got a stem cell transplant in early August, 2021, about a week before my actual birthday.

Now that it's 6 months after my transplant date I'm slowly getting weaned off all my supportive medications and my oncology teams are relaxing back into careful monitoring rather than active treatment.

And I am sharing my story here, in hopes that it will help others in the future.