Kris Tuchek-Her Fight is Our Fight

08/27/2026

Behind every MCL diagnosis is a story.

The story of the day it was said out loud. The story of what came before. The story of how we were diagnosed. Of treatment. Of surviving and thriving. It's also the stories of the people who showed up — the ones who sat in waiting rooms, cooked meals, drove to appointments, held space in the middle of the night.

MCL is rare. About 4,000 people in the U.S. hear those three words every year. For each of them, there's a whole life around that diagnosis — and often no one nearby who's walked this same road.

That's why we tell these stories.

Our patient and caregiver stories, told in their own words, are one of the most important things we do at MCLA. Every story is a light for the next person who Googles 'mantle cell lymphoma' at 2 a.m. and wonders if anyone else has been where they are.

You'll find some of them here: https://mantlecellalliance.org/voices/

More are coming. If you have a story you'd like to share — patient, care partner, family member — MCLA Voices is where we begin: mantlecellalliance.org/voices

However you found your way to this community, we're grateful you're here.

08/24/2026

Hi everyone! Sister Karen here-

Because you follow Kris, you know she has mantle cell lymphoma (MCL)—which is rare type of lymphoma. You may also know that she and are are co-founders of a charity supporting others with MCL- the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance.

Something you may not know: lymphoma is a blood cancer. It affects lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that is part of our immune system.

September gives us several opportunities to shine a light on MCL:

🩸Blood Cancer Awareness Month,
💜World Lymphoma Awareness Day on September 15, and
🦓Rare Cancer Day on September 23—which also happens to be Kris’s birthday. 🧡

So this year, we want to make sure that when people are talking about blood cancers, lymphoma and rare cancers, mantle cell lymphoma is part of the conversation.

Because MCL is rare, our community is small. The Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance (MCLA) is the only nonprofit in the world dedicated exclusively to mantle cell lymphoma—and it grew, in part, out of Kris’s experience and our family’s realization that people affected by MCL needed a stronger voice.

Before September begins, we’re asking everyone who has followed Kris, cheered her on, prayed for her, checked in on her, or simply cared about her journey to do one very easy thing:

Please follow MCLA. 🧡

Every new follower helps MCL information, patient and caregiver stories, and research reach beyond our small community. It helps give people living with MCL—and the families walking beside them—a bigger voice at a time when the world is paying more attention to blood cancers.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mantlecellalliance
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mantlecellalliance

Please follow—and share this post if you’re willing.

For Kris, and for everyone living with this rare disease, help us make sure MCL is heard this September. 🧡

59 Followers, 53 Following, 24 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance ()

07/07/2026

The toys are packed up for another year. The sand castles are gone. The tiny hands leaving their mark wherever they roam, the giggles, and tiny whispers in the dark. They are all gone. And I sit here so grateful for the time we had, but so sad when they leave.

No more little voices yelling “Grandma, Grandma, Grandma.” No more squeals as they tube behind the boat for the first time. No more “look at the fish I just caught” over and over again. Their soft skin, their morning hair, their sandy toes and bottoms. Popsicles, ice cream truck, hot dogs and chips. Fireworks, sparklers and endless golf cart rides around the neighborhood. Why does it go so fast?

No more tripping over toys, or chasing a toddler down the yard. No more sticky hands, wet swimsuits, missing shoes, snack crumbs, bedtime chaos, or one more story. My heart was overflowing all week and now the quiet is too much. The house is clean again. I don't like it.

I know how lucky I am to be here for all of it. Cancer changes everything. I know these are the days I prayed for. The days I was afraid I would miss. I am so grateful for the noise, the mess, the chaos, the little voices, the memories, the chance to watch them grow.

The chance to watch them grow. I have endless gratitude to have this gift. The chance to watch them grow. But today I miss them so much already.

06/28/2026

Sister Karen here! We’re so proud of everything Kris is doing with the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance (MCLA). In six short months we have an up and running charity with a top notch Board and Scientific Advisory Board, live webpage, newsletter….

Of course Kris is focusing on patient and caregiver support. Because that’s who she is.

If you haven’t yet, please follow our new FB page for MCLA. We want to hit 150 followers this weekend!

https://www.facebook.com/share/1aiGrZcj13/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Here we are working on our latest post!

06/04/2026

June 4, 2024. Tecartus CAR-T.
Two years ago today, my modified T cells were infused.

Four years ago, when I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, I thought I was starting my last chapter. I left my job. I tried to wrap my head around having maybe 3 to 5 years left. And without even realizing it, I started living to die.

I took trips thinking they would probably be my last ones. I pulled away from people I cared about because imagining leaving them was too hard. I hesitated to buy a new boat because I didn’t think I would be here long enough to enjoy it. I was scared to sign a car lease because I thought I might die before the lease was up. Such a strange and uncomfortable way to live.

The road from diagnosis to today was not easy. There were treatments, relapses, complications, fear, and days when I was not sure how much more I had in me. CAR-T was not easy either, and I don’t want to pretend it was. But it gave me something I honestly did not think I would have again: time, remission, and a quality of life I never imagined two years later.

I was so very wrong about this being my last chapter.

Today I am working out and walking daily. I am traveling. I am spending time with my family and friends. I am watching my grandchildren grow. I am making plans again.

And I bought the boat.

I don’t know exactly what the next chapters will look like. But I know this: I am still here, living days I never thought I would get, and I’m grateful for every one of them. I absolutely love my life and wouldn’t change a thing.

Thank you to everyone who has loved me, supported me, checked in, prayed, hoped, laughed, cried, and walked with me through all of this.
💚🦋💚Kris

05/28/2026

Today is Blood Cancer Awareness Day.

Four years ago I had never even heard of Mantle Cell Lymphoma. Now I live with the reality of an incurable blood cancer every single day — even on the good days. Especially on the good days.

People often see the travel photos, the grandkids, the adventures, the workouts, the laughter — and all of those things are real. I work very hard to LIVE while also living with cancer.

But there is another side to this life that is harder to explain unless you’ve lived it yourself.

The uncertainty. The scan anxiety. The mental balancing act between gratitude and fear. The strange space between feeling healthy and knowing the disease could return at any time.

Blood cancers are unique in so many ways. Many of us look healthy long before we feel emotionally safe again. Treatments can be lifesaving, but they can also permanently change our immune systems, our futures, our careers, our identities, and the way our families live.

And yet… there is also hope. Real hope.

When I was diagnosed four years ago, many of the treatments now being used and studied either did not exist or were just emerging. The pace of progress in blood cancer research is incredible, and it is giving patients like me more time, more options, and more reasons to believe the future can look different than it once did.

Over the last several months, I have quietly poured much of my heart and energy into helping cofound the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance (MCLA), a newly formed 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to patients, caregivers, education, awareness, support, and ultimately advancing research for mantle cell lymphoma.

After I was forced into retirement from healthcare because of my diagnosis, I struggled deeply with losing the ability to help people in the way I always had. MCLA has given me a way to find purpose again.

We are building the resources I wish had existed when I was diagnosed: trusted information, guidance from experts, help navigating treatment decisions, and a community where patients feel less alone.

I’ve also recently started a small Facebook community specifically for MCL patients and caregivers navigating life wrote, during and after CAR-T cell therapy. What started as a simple idea has quickly become a meaningful space filled with shared experience, support, and connection.

Sometimes helping others is also part of healing yourself.

So today, on Blood Cancer Awareness Day, I am feeling especially grateful:
for more time,
for science,
for my family,
for every person researching these diseases,
for every caregiver,
for every survivor,
and for every patient still fighting through the hard days.

And maybe most of all… grateful that purpose can still grow in places where fear once lived.

If you’d like to learn more about the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance: https://mantlecellalliance.org

-T

The Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance supports patients, caregivers, and researchers with trusted information, expert-guided support, and targeted research to advance better treatments and a cure.

04/22/2026

I realized today that I haven’t shared much here in a while. The last time I posted was after our family trip to Arizona for my mom’s 90th birthday. All of us together for the first time in 10 years. I wrote, “These are the days I never thought I’d see. Forever grateful for blessings.”

And that is still true.

Tonight I am sitting at MD Anderson in Houston waiting for PET scan results I will get Thursday morning. Twenty-two months after Tecartus CAR-T. Terrified some days that the cancer is coming back. Because with mantle cell lymphoma there is no cure. There is only treatment. And I have already had some of the best treatments there are.

Some days I feel like I am pushing the envelope and any minute it will all come crashing back down.

And then there are the other days. Days where I almost forget I have cancer.

I feel good. I exercise. I travel. I laugh. I live.

Since January, Lara and I spent time in Mexico. Then a month in South Carolina with my sister and our spouses. Then Phoenix for my mom’s birthday with the whole family. Then we packed up the car and the dog and spent a month in Colorado, renting a house three doors down from my daughter and husband and her babies

For a month we got to be full-time grandmas to Liv, Asher, and Andi. Every day was a new adventure. Sticky hands,dirty faces, art projects, bedtime stories, playgrounds,dinosaurs, zoos, roller coasters, biking and scootering, little voices, toddler chaos, and so much joy. Exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

I got time with Emily who drove down from the mountains outside Denver. Todd came from LA and stayed for a week. We had all my babies and grandbabies together in one place more than once this year.

There is nothing I love more than that. Nothing.

Cancer has changed the way our family lives. We do not live in “next year,” “someday,” or “when things calm down.”

Because one day is now.

We take the trip. We pack up the dog. We stay a month. We say yes. We stop waiting.

Because the truth is, none of us know how much time we have.

As scared as I am sitting here tonight, I also have hope. More hope than I had four years ago when I was diagnosed. Treatments are changing quickly. There are bispecifics, new types of CAR-T, transplant options, and things coming that did not exist when I first heard the words “you have mantle cell lymphoma.”

I need this remission to last long enough for the next better option to become clear.

And for the first time since I had to leave healthcare and retire, I have found a way to be useful again.

I have cofounded the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Alliance a 501(c)3 nonprofit. MCLA. It is still in its baby stages, but we are moving quickly. We envision a future in which every person affected by mantle cell lymphoma has access to expert‑informed care, clear treatment choices, and a strong support community — and where sustained, collaborative research leads to better therapies, longer lives, and, ultimately, a cure. I spent my whole career helping people through some of the worst moments of their lives. Losing that part of myself after my diagnosis was devastating.

But maybe this is another way to help.

Maybe if I can help someone else find their footing, get better information, feel less afraid, or someday help fund research that leads to a cure, then something meaningful can still come from all of this.

I am tired tonight. Physically and emotionally. I barely slept. I am overwhelmed. But I know there are people here who understand this strange space between living and waiting. Between joy and fear. Between being healthy enough to forget and terrified enough to remember.

So tonight I am choosing hope.

And I am trusting that I still have more time.

-T
(And holy crap what a photo dump. I love them so much I can’t cut any of them ! They are my everything. My whole world💕)

04/14/2026

June 4 will be my 2 year post Tecartus CAR-t anniversary. Next week I head to MDAnderson for my every 4 month PET scan and labs. Here is a really interesting article about CAR-Tcell therapy and how it is keeping people like me and so many others alive longer. Without advances like CAR-t I would have died 2 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260410-how-a-new-wave-of-immunotherapy-is-eliminating-cancers?fbclid=IwdGRleARLKClleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe1QYqPkSM7ogK1BtEJ3Vy1qw6uSOzYtMU-WAivs1f0Q5md6-3-e6IOIAiYqo_aem_Sdff7rl-tkUkj8mKmgaTTQ

After nearly 100 years of development, treatments that bolster the body's immune system to fight cancer are coming of age – and saving patients' lives.