R&B Singer Nivea, 44, Says She’s ‘Living for the Love’ After Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Diagnosis

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“As incredibly surprised as I was to have the diagnosis confirmed after [two] (because the [first] one wasn’t successful) bone marrow biopsy procedures, I was profoundly thankful that it wasn’t Blast [blastoma]. Which would have meant chemotherapy as part of the treatment,” Nivea reportedly stated.

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“Also learning CML isn’t hereditary nor something ‘I did’ to cause it, was a relief yet still a bit puzzling… Life for me has changed in various ways but treatment thus far is working.”

She concluded, “Taking it day by day with a positive mindset [and] a heart full of gratitude! I’m blessed with the ability to still do what I love—music, continue to mother my children, and learn new skills that fuel me! I am and have been very blessed in this life and won’t ever take it for granted.”

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Prior to that interview, she first offered insight into her health with CadillacChroniclesTV, explaining, “I was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year, and I’m so grateful to God. I’ve been going through treatment, and everything is going great so far. And I expect it to continue. Amen. Very grateful for life.

“It’s so cliché to say you don’t know the time nor the hour, but it’s true and it just helped me put a lot of things in perspective, and I live in gratitude, like, religiously, and I’m just grateful for everything.”

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“I’m doing things I wanna do,” Nivea added. “I’m definitely back into my music, and I’m going to school for audio engineering. I’ve always wanted to learn how to engineer, and mixing engineering in particular.”

We’re delighted to hear Nivea is continuing to embrace life by doing what she loves, especially while living with CML — a type of cancer that, thankfully, has become far more manageable in recent years.

The fact that conversations now center on quality of life, side-effect management, and treatment-free intervals reflects just how far CML care has come. With multiple effective therapies, improved tolerability, and ongoing clinical trials refining dosing strategies, patients have more options than ever before.

Advances in CML mean:

• CML is highly treatable for most patients
• Side effects should be discussed openly; adjustments are possible
• Deep remissions are increasingly achievable
• For some patients, stopping treatment may become a realistic goal

While every patient’s journey is unique, continued advances in research are steadily improving both outcomes and quality of life for people living with CML.

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Better Understanding CML & How Patients Cope Diagnosed With It

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), also known as chronic myelogenous leukemia, is a type of cancer of the white blood cells. As the disease progresses, CML cells crowd out healthy cells and eventually build up and spill over into the blood. Although CML usually grows slowly, it can also turn into a faster-growing acute leukemia, which is more challenging to treat.

CML occurs when a cell in the bone marrow breaks two chromosomes (9 and 22), which then fuse to form a characteristic abnormal chromosome called the Philadelphia chromosome (named for the city where it was first identified).

Chromosomes are structures found inside the nucleus of a cell. A chromosome is made up of proteins and DNA organized into genes. People normally have 46 chromosomes, divided into 23 pairs, in each cell. One of each pair of chromosomes comes from your mother, and the other pair comes from your father. The Philadelphia chromosome is present in the blood cells of 90% of people with CML.

WATCH: Diagnosing CML Without Obvious Symptoms

“What happens with CML is there is a cross of your chromosomes, so there is a cross between chromosome 9 and chromosome 22,” Dr. Eric Winer, clinical director of adult leukemia at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, previously told SurvivorNet.

Crossing chromosomes creates a gene called BCR-ABL, which eventually causes the overproduction of cells seen in CML.

Patients diagnosed early tend to have better outcomes.

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“It’s important for patients diagnosed with CML to understand that their prognosis is quite favorable,” Dr. Jay Yang, hematologist, medical oncologist, and leader of the Hematology-Oncology Multidisciplinary Team at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, told SurvivorNet.

“With modern treatments, most patients will go on to live healthy and productive lives with a normal life expectancy.”

The American Cancer Society estimates about 9,650 people will be diagnosed with CML in the US in 2026, and CML accounts for around 15% of all new leukemia cases each year.

The average age at diagnosis is around 66, with only about 2% of cases occurring in people younger than 20.

Typical Leukemia Symptoms

CML symptoms are often vague, as many other ailments can cause them. However, common symptoms include:

• Weakness
• Fatigue
• Night sweats
• Weight loss
• Fever
• Bone pain
• An enlarged spleen (which may be felt as a mass under the left side of the ribcage)
• Pain or a sense of fullness in the stomach
• Feeling full after a small amount of food

“At the beginning of the disease the majority of patients are asymptomatic and so they may not even be aware of any change in their health. But if CML is left untreated, white blood cells will become unharnessed and uncontrolled,” Dr. Frances Arena, medical director at NYU Langone Arena Oncology and Integration, tells SurvivorNet.

“This allows the CML cells to outmaneuver normal cells. Then so-called “good” cells, the ones that carry oxygen (otherwise known as red blood cells), lessen,” Dr. Arena adds.

WATCH: The Different Phases of CML Explained

Treating Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

The treatment path that you and your doctor take may depend on several factors, including your age, overall health, and whether the cancer has progressed to a more advanced phase. However, common treatment options to fight CML include:

• Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), the standard first-line treatment for most patients
• Chemotherapy, typically reserved for more advanced or resistant cases
• Bone marrow or stem cell transplant, generally considered when other treatments haven’t worked

Several TKIs are on the market. Those approved as a first line of defense against CML include:

• Imatinib (brand name: Gleevec)
• Dasatinib (brand name: Sprycel)
• Nilotinib (brand name: Tasigna)
• Bosutinib (brand name: Bosulif)
• Ponatinib (brand name: Iclusig)

WATCH: Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Therapy

Dr. Winer explained how TKI treatment works in a way many video gamers can relate to.

“To oversimplify, imagine the video game Pac-Man. These energy packets are adenosine triphosphates (ATP). These are energy stores within cells that go into the mouth of the Pac-Man [BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase], causing it to change its conformation and shape. This forces the CML cells to multiply. All of the TKIs block the entrance of the energy packet into the mouth of the Pac-Man, [so it] cannot change its conformation,” Dr. Winer said.

RELATED: A Promising New Treatment Option: Research Shows Asciminib (Scemblix) is More Effective & Safer Than Standard Treatment for Newly-Diagnosed CML

More recently, asciminib (brand name: Scemblix) has emerged as a newer option with a different mechanism of action than the drugs above. Rather than targeting the same site as traditional TKIs, asciminib binds to a different pocket on the BCR-ABL protein, a mechanism designed to help address resistance that can develop with earlier lines of treatment.

First approved for patients who had already tried other TKIs, the FDA later granted accelerated approval for asciminib as a first-line treatment for newly diagnosed patients after a large trial found it produced better response rates with fewer severe side effects and treatment discontinuations than standard TKIs.

Monitoring Progress

Because TKIs are taken daily as pills, doctors track how well they’re working through regular blood tests that measure BCR-ABL gene levels. Hitting specific milestones — like a “major molecular response” — helps guide decisions about whether a patient is a candidate to eventually reduce or stop treatment, as discussed below on treatment-free remission.

The Future of CML Treatment

“The biggest advance in CML in the past five years is not a treatment per se, but a lack of treatment,” Dr. Yang told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview.

“We had previously thought all patients with CML needed to stay in treatment for the rest of their lives. We now know that a portion of patients with CML who have responded well to treatment and who have achieved a deep remission can potentially stop their treatment and stay in remission long-term. Unfortunately, this situation does not apply to all patients and should only be done under the careful supervision of their treating physician.”

Dr. Arena also previously told SurvivorNet. “I can say to some of my patients: ‘Let’s stop the medicine! Let’s stop the medicine!’ And in greater than 50% of patients, their CML will not recur.”

Researchers are currently investigating new strategies that may allow more patients to discontinue their treatment.

Questions to Ask Your Doctor

For CML patients, as far as what questions you should be asking your doctor, we are fortunate to have guidance from Dr. Jorge Cortes, Director of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University. As a leading expert in his field. Here is a summary of questions and topics that are important to address with your medical team:

• What are my options? “I think it is very important to ask about what all my options are. If I’m presented with, ‘Hey, you have CML, I’m going to give you this drug,’ always ask, ‘What are my other options? What are the pros and cons? What are my long-term goals? What are we aiming for? What are the chances with this drug? What are the chances with another drug?’ Always ask for options for the information and again, emphasize the long-term goals,” Dr. Cortes explains.
• How can I live better, have a better quality of life? “Now we know that patients can have a near-normal life expectancy, but go beyond that,” Dr. Cortes recommends. “What about not only living longer, living better, how can we achieve that? Is this the best option you’re offering me for that purpose as well? I think that asking those questions is very important.”
• What does my outcome look like? “I do think that it is very important to recognize that having another new tool for patients where we can put everything that we talked about- the patient characteristics, the disease characteristics, the drug characteristics- and look at what’s best for the patient. Having another option and one that’s very effective and very safe is going to allow me, for a large number of patients, to provide a better outcome,” Dr. Cortes explains. “And I think we always need to look at that. And again, I always emphasize long-term goals. That’s where I want to be.”

If you have a cancer screening coming up or have recently had one, you may have questions you want answered. SurvivorNet’s proprietary AI tool “My Health Questions” is designed specifically for patients and caregivers.

WATCH: How One Cancer Survivor and Her Sister Used “My Health Questions” to Navigate Care

This powerful resource is embedded across the SurvivorNet website and delivers structured responses grounded in clinical guidelines and medically reviewed research, helping people better understand their treatment options and feel more confident navigating care.

My Health Questions can also help patients prepare useful questions ahead of their next appointment.

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

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