181: Keri Darling survived follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma | bendamustine | rituximab | immunotherapy

In March 2025, Keri Darling fell out of bed and hit her head.  A trip to the doctor revealed a large mass on her pancreas.  After a series of scans, Keri received a phone call at work from a nurse who told her she had cancer; not cancer of the pancreas, but a type of blood cancer, Stage IV follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  She was put on a regimen of chemotherapy, bendamustine, followed by immunotherapy, rituximab.  Keri has achieved survivorship, but each day deals with severe fatigue, which she believes is tied to her chemo regimen.  She still goes in for bimonthly injections of rituximab and says he expects to always be dealing with some level of fatigue.  Nonetheless, she finds the time and energy to help others as a cancer coach.   Two years prior to March 2025, Keri was constantly feeling fatigued.  This was annoying, but she had no idea what was behind her feeling so tired so often.  Then in the middle of the night on a Friday, she got out of bed, fell and hit her head.  She and her husband went to the emergency room.  After some scans, doctors detected a large mass on Keri's pancreas.  She and her husband were terrified that she had pancreatic cancer.  A nurse referred her to an oncologist and a gastroenterologist.    Keri said this wasn't a good time for her to deal with a potential cancer diagnosis.  She was just about to start a new job and the insurance from her previous job was going to lapse in a week.  A nurse urged Keri to get insurance through COBRA, which she did.  Nonetheless, she still had to juggle her health and a new job.    She went to a GI doctor who performed a biopsy.  Keri was at work when she received a call from a nurse telling her she had been diagnosed not with pancreatic cancer, but with Stage IV follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  In terms of treatment, she was given three options and chose a mix of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.  The chemotherapy was bendamustine and the immunotherapy was rituximab.   Keri said she had been prescribed medication to combat the ensuing nausea, but that the toughest part of her chemo regimen was the constant fatigue.  She was also plagued with cognitive issues that resulted in post-its all over her home and a lot of attention paid to the calendar on her phone.   Keri Darling says if she thinks to the time before she started feeling constant fatigue in 2023, and thought of her health as 100 percent, now her health is at around 40 percent.  She says every day she feels fatigued.  It is merely a question of how fatigued she will feel, but she approaches each day as a chance for her health to improve over the previous day.   Additional Resources:   Keri's coaching website:   https://www.nexttogether.co (NOT .com)