About

My Story

Hello! My name is Marit and I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina. A Minnesota native, I love spending time outdoors, backpacking long trails, travel, photography and writing, getting lost running in Bent Creek, sushi dates with friends, tubing in the Smokies, Andy, kitties, sampling new beers and I generally try to see at least three bears per week. 

And I’m waiting for a bone marrow transplant.

In 2018 I was diagnosed with GATA2 Deficiency. And after years and years of searching for why I continued to fall ill, I was grateful to have a name. I compare it to the shark in Jaws; it’s a lot scarier when you can’t see it but you know its there. In my (then) 37 years of life, I had had too many close calls – chicken pox, blood clots & PEs, pneumonias, bone marrow failure – and was relieved to know what I was facing. 

And in retrospect, it was actually one of the best things that could have happened to me. I changed my life for the better, left an unhappy marriage and relocated to Asheville, finding purpose, healing, and love. I was accepted into a clinical study (Protocol) at the National Institutes of Health and after two years of searching for a donor, am looking towards an October 2020 transplant.

In my post bone marrow transplant life, I dream of being able to help folks & their families who struggle with chronic illness. I’m not sure what form this will take, but I’ve been accepted into graduate school. I begin my Masters of Social Work in Fall of 2021. 

I created this blog in hopes to share my transplant story though art. In addition, I want this site to serve as a connection to loved ones, family and friends – illness is incredibly isolating and can be frightening at times; it is my hope that this site may bring us together.

Thanks for reading!!

Marit Chrislock

Asheville, NC