As we know, every WMer is unique. Equally unique is the impact the disease has on their family and loved ones. In September, 2022, Maclean's published this look at two WM diagnoses, and the impact on their families. See https://www.macleans.ca/longforms/finding-courage-and-calm/.
Our group started over fifty years ago! Well, not really, but... In 1966 I met Betty McPhee in Vancouver. Three years later she was married and living in Philadelphia. I was working on a medical team in West Africa. It was over forty years later when we met by accident over coffee in a church in Toronto, where Betty and her husband now live. But we had no time to visit -- I was flying back to Vancouver later that day. We agreed to connect on Facebook. And that’s where Betty learned later that my husband had been diagnosed with a (non-WM) [...]
"I was at work when my doctor called me on my cell phone. I teach Deaf students, and I normally wouldn't answer the phone at school, but I happened to be on a spare. She told me that she thought I had Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia which is a rare blood cancer, and when I heard that word, it really stopped me in my tracks. You hear the word cancer, and the first thing you think is that you might not live much longer. I didn't know what to think, but I knew that I wasn't going to let it take over [...]
An update from Michael Knowlton. He has recently (Dec., 2021) published two new videos: You Can't Have the Highs Without the Lows, and Navigating The Journey Of Illness. Check out his entire series, documenting his journey with WM, his sources of inspiration, and the truths he lives with: "We CAN cer-vive". He also added the following message to his fellow WMers: Happy anniversary to me lol. 15 years today since my cancer diagnosis in 2006. As many of you know, I started a video series titled We CANcer Vive based on my experiences of living with an incurable cancer. It’s [...]
Raffela urges us to Choose Hope, and reminds us that we can each make a difference.
After her difficult journey through and beyond a stem cell transplant, Lucie writes "one must sustain belief in oneself ... the body and the mind make up a wonderful machine ... listening to them can be most instructive".
Learning from a life "punctuated by a cascade of medical events", Carol advises that it is important to be a partner with your doctor. "It's not just about finding the right medicine; it's also about sustaining positive attitudes", she writes.
As Murray tells it, his WM "is fascinating, time-consuming and important to me, but, like all hobbies, should not become an obsession".
Stu relates his 18-year-and-counting journey with WM, and concludes: "Nothing is going to get in my way of striking things off my 'bucket list'".
Ron's story, in slides, takes him through several treatments to a clinical trial that finally provided a measure of long-term success.
