Leukemia Survivor: Early Care Talks Changed Everything

When Britt Mayo got a call from his doctor at 7:15 a.m. after a routine physical, he knew something was wrong. The diagnosis was chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and in that moment, his world shrank from long-term plans to wondering if he'd see another year.

But what happened next changed everything. Britt sat down with his care team at UT MD Anderson and talked about what mattered most in his life.

As a lifelong pianist and computer user, he needed to protect his hands from nerve damage. He wanted to avoid cognitive side effects that could affect his work. And he desperately wanted to keep traveling the world with his wife, Diana, to visit family.

The standard treatment in 2010 was chemotherapy, but Britt was hesitant. His care team listened and told him about an emerging clinical trial on the horizon. Together, they created a watch-and-wait strategy that would let him delay treatment until he could qualify for the trial.

That single conversation saved his treatment plan. If Britt had received even one round of chemotherapy, he would have been ineligible for the immunotherapy trial that eventually put him into remission without compromising anything he valued.

Today, immunotherapy has become standard treatment for many leukemia patients. For Britt, the real victory was emotional as well as medical.

"Before we had that conversation, there was tension between what I wanted and what I thought I had to do," he says. "Once the plan matched my goals, I felt at ease. That's a liberating feeling."

Why This Inspires

Since his diagnosis, Britt has spoken with hundreds of fellow patients during clinical trials and clinic visits. The same story keeps coming up: people didn't realize they had choices in their cancer care.

"I can't tell you how many times people told me they didn't know there were options," he says. "Early communication could have sent them down a very different path."

Britt is quick to note that every diagnosis is different. Some cancers require specific approaches with limited alternatives. But even when choices are limited, understanding what matters to a patient helps care teams support quality of life and family needs.

Now Britt has made it his mission to help other patients speak up early and often about their priorities. He's working on tools to help patients communicate better with their care teams, turning his own experience into a roadmap for others facing similar journeys.

One conversation changed the course of Britt's life, and now he's making sure other patients know they deserve that same conversation.