This will be my second year volunteering for the Healing Hearts Telethon happening on September 18th, 2025. Broadcast LIVE on KABB FOX 29 News, San Antonio and News 4 San Antonio, this local initiative helps raise money for the Karen Martinez Patient Assistance Fund at ThriveWell Cancer Foundation.
I volunteered last year, and I’m volunteering this year to help pay back ThriveWell just a little bit for what they’ve given me.
In November 2022, I became seriously ill. By December 2022, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, double-hit high-grade, stage four. It took me from a wheelchair to a walker, and then to a cane all the time, and finally to a cane just sometimes.
I found ThriveWell just before my last chemo visit in March 2023. I saw that they were San Antonio-based, and I was so thrilled to find that out. They’ve helped me with transportation to and from appointments, scans, MRIs, and x-rays, as well as all the crazy times I’ve had to go for blood draws. I’m part of the Diva & Dude program. I’ve learned about exercise, nutrition, somatic therapy, breath classes, artful healing, and so many other things that they provide to cancer patients and survivors at no cost to the patient or survivor.