As most of you know, I was diagnosed with idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease at the end of my second year of medical school in May 2013. Out of the blue, and over a period of weeks, I became progressively fatigued and cachexic and my kidneys began to fail. Only after weeks of dialysis, numerous medications including chemotherapy, and nearly a month long hospitalization did my doctors finally find a life-saving drug to treat me. Unfortunately, the drug that worked for me is neither a cure nor a treatment that works for all patients, and those who don't respond to it often pass away. As a patient, patient advocate, and future physician, I’m working to bring awareness to physicians, raise funds for research, and ultimately find a cure for this rare, poorly understood, and deadly disease.

Last year, friends and family like you helped me raise nearly $25,000 which was used to fund an entire pilot research study (click here to read about it)! With the promising results we received from this project, we're now focused on replicating it on a larger scale. We would love to launch this and many more of our 2016 research studies but need your help to do so. Please consider donating to our cause! You can learn more about these 2016 research priorities by clicking here.

You can hear more about my personal story with the disease from the presentation I shared at the Drug Information Association's 2015 meeting earlier this year: