Our group started over fifty years ago! \u00a0Well, not really, but…<\/p>\n
In 1966 I met Betty McPhee in Vancouver.\u00a0 Three years later she was married and living in Philadelphia.\u00a0 <\/em>I was working on a medical team in West Africa.\u00a0 It was over forty years later when we met by accident over coffee in a church in Toronto, where Betty and her husband now\u00a0<\/em>live.\u00a0 But we had no time to visit — I was flying back to Vancouver later that day. \u00a0We agreed to connect on Facebook.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where Betty learned later that my husband had been diagnosed with a (non-WM) blood cancer.<\/p>\n Betty knew I was a registered nurse with a long career in health care. \u00a0She knew I was familiar with the chemo regimen for WM. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure if she knew I had a lot of experience leading groups, but nevertheless, she asked me if I would consider facilitating a Vancouver group for WM people.\u00a0 Betty came to Vancouver and we all met in a room provided by the BC Cancer Agency.<\/em> \u00a0Bill, Brian and Jimmy (and his wife) were our first group members.\u00a0 That first group was a small cosmos of what our present-day group is.\u00a0 These three men were all at different stages of their illness.\u00a0 And they each had something to offer and continue\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0<\/em>offer to this day.\u00a0 Bill still exudes hope and calmness.\u00a0 Jimmy\u2019s deep, quiet, intelligence gives us pause, and Brian\u2019s long experience with WM and heartfelt care for everyone in the group is a gift to us.\u00a0 And Janet, Jimmy\u2019s wife,<\/em>\u00a0represents\u00a0every caring spouse standing alongside their WM partner.<\/p>\n We started meeting in the lounge of my church in central Vancouver, kindly offered rent-free, with free tea\/coffee.\u00a0 Free parking too.\u00a0 But there were downsides.\u00a0 Anyone living in the suburbs had a lot of driving to do, and our afternoon meetings meant trying to get home before rush hour.\u00a0 Taking transit was horrible.\u00a0 We could really only meet a couple of times a year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in my life, our beloved granddaughter, Lucie, was diagnosed with leukemia.\u00a0 Another blood cancer in the family. \u00a0And my husband\u2019s remission ended.\u00a0 Lucie was treated at BC Children\u2019s Hospital, and their entire family of six lived in one room at Ronald McDonald House for eight months.\u00a0 Her treatment continued for another year at home in northern BC.\u00a0 By 2019 she was thriving!<\/p>\n And then my husband got a new, fresh, hungry cancer, unrelated to his blood cancer.\u00a0 He\u2019d survived a stroke, the blood cancer, open heart surgery and many other intrusions, but he could not beat this new diagnosis.\u00a0 He died six months later, in 2019, after over 46 years of a wonderful marriage.<\/p>\n And then came the pandemic. \u00a0Obviously, our public meetings were out of the question.\u00a0 We moved to Zoom meetings, new to most of us. Jimmy had a Zoom licence and looked after the technical part.\u00a0 No one had to drive anywhere.\u00a0 No one had to rustle up energy to leave the house.\u00a0 For us, Zoom was a gift.<\/em><\/p>\n We had no idea what would happen next.\u00a0 The group blossomed!\u00a0 First, WM people who lived too far away to drive to meetings were suddenly able to access our group.\u00a0 Then we expanded it to the whole province.\u00a0 We started meeting monthly, and not a month has gone by that we haven\u2019t welcomed at least one new member.\u00a0 A few months ago, the WMFC\u00a0<\/em>asked the groups to find a co-leader for each group. Our group chose Brenda.\u00a0 Brenda is one of our younger group members, and we\u2019re a good mix.\u00a0 Brenda brings tech knowledge I don\u2019t have and whipped us into shape pretty fast.\u00a0 She\u2019s opinionated and smart.\u00a0 She brings energy to the group and is utterly knowledgeable about everything happening in the WM world, and generously shares it all.\u00a0 Where I\u2019m quiet and reserved, Brenda is warm and exuberant.\u00a0 I\u2019m old.\u00a0 She\u2019s not.\u00a0 We each have different skills and qualities.<\/p>\n Once we were established on Zoom, we were able to welcome Joe Lewicki, a WMFC board member.\u00a0 I\u2019d been hoping to have Joe as a guest speaker, but instead we have him as a regular group member, and this is so great.\u00a0 Joe is a walking encyclopedia about Waldenstrom\u2019s. Our gravel-voiced friend knows everything there is to know about this illness and is always willing to share his knowledge.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t pretend to be a doctor.\u00a0 He just shares his vast knowledge and has been hugely helpful to the group in general and individuals in particular.\u00a0 And he has a sense of humour.\u00a0 What more could we ask?<\/p>\n Our group is not a Waldenstrom\u2019s Macroglobulinemia group.\u00a0 It\u2019s a group comprised of people who have Waldenstrom\u2019s Macroglobulinemia — people with hopes, dreams, skills, courage, fears, patience, impatience, life experience.\u00a0 Single people.\u00a0 Married people.\u00a0 Parents.\u00a0 Grandparents.\u00a0 And great big hearts.<\/p>\n Let me give you an example:<\/p>\n My little Lucie was doing so great in her recovery, when very suddenly, this Spring, she had a massive relapse.\u00a0 She spent weeks back at Children\u2019s in Vancouver with her mom, while Daddy remained\u00a0<\/em>at home in the Cariboo with the other three kids.\u00a0 She was recently discharged to Ronald McDonald House again, and Dad and the kids have arrived to join them.\u00a0 (This time they have two rooms!)\u00a0 She can be with her family and still receive the chemo and other treatment she requires.<\/p>\n Unbeknownst to me, our group member, Brian, asked the group if maybe they\u2019d like to send Lu a small gift.\u00a0 Brian told me the response was overwhelming.\u00a0 A short time later, Brian and his wife, Margaret (who also has serious health issues), went shopping and then personally delivered to RMH\u00a0\u00a0age-appropriate gift bags of books and toys to ALL the kids, plus a gift certificate to a family restaurant and family passes to a local fun locale that does not require a lot of \u201chands-on\u201d activity (important for immuno-suppressed kids).\u00a0 And he even used his magic to get an autographed Canucks hockey stick for Lu\u2019s beloved brother, Nolan!\u00a0 I am overwhelmed with gratitude.<\/p>\n As I write this [July 2021], a number of our support\u00a0<\/em>group members are facing very critical medical issues.\u00a0 This is a concern for us all.\u00a0 We continue to meet through the summer because of this.\u00a0 And Lucie has taken a very serious turn for the worse and has been readmitted to Children\u2019s.\u00a0 We anxiously await her bloodwork results each day.<\/p>\n In closing, this is not a report about a group.\u00a0 This is a warm greeting to you all from a group of people in BC who are facing life in all its richness and all its complexities, one day at a time.<\/p>\n Kit\u00a0Schindell (BC Support Group Co-Leader)<\/p>\n Kit is a retired former director with Providence Health Care in Vancouver. She has also been a freelance editor for over 25 years. She lives in beautiful Vancouver where she enjoys the twenty-minute summer, her grandchildren, her geraniums, her hundreds of books, and the occasional inch of vodka.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n And to fill in more of the history of support groups in BC: Dennis and Charlene Kornaga were involved in starting a Vancouver Support Group in 2009.\u00a0 They were also involved in the organization and planning of the Vancouver Educational Forum in 2014.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Kornagas moved to Vancouver Island and there was no one available to take their place.\u00a0 During that time, Dennis faced some serious medical challenges (as did several other SG members), but we are very thankful to report that he is now doing very well and thriving in Courtney, on Vancouver Island.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our group started over fifty years ago! \u00a0Well, not really, but… In 1966 I met Betty McPhee in Vancouver.\u00a0 Three years later she was married and living in Philadelphia.\u00a0 I was working on a medical team in West Africa.\u00a0 It was over forty years later when we met by accident over coffee in a church in Toronto, where Betty and her husband now\u00a0live.\u00a0 But we had no time to visit — I was flying back to Vancouver later that day. \u00a0We agreed to connect on Facebook.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where Betty learned later that my husband had been diagnosed with a (non-WM) […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-story-of-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4340"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4345,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions\/4345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wmfc.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}