Amaya Matos was 19 years old when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She’d just graduated high school, but instead of heading off to college or hanging out with friends, she spent much of her time sitting in a hospital bed, scrolling on her phone.

Getting treatment for cancer can be extremely isolating: physically, especially when you’re inpatient and at constant risk of infection; and mentally, because no one else in your life fully understands what you’re going through.

Now 25, Matos is approaching five years of remission, but she’s still managing complications. A stem cell transplant triggered graft versus host disease, a condition in which donated stem cells attack the patient’s own body. Chronic graft versus host disease is rare, and navigating it can be just as lonely.

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