Canswerist

Flashback video: Christine Pechera Meets Her Donor Kent Wong at the City of Hope "Celebration of Life" Bone Marrow Transplant Reunion on April 25, 2008. With KABC's Denise Dador. This reunion experience is one that I hope to enjoy about a year from now. Originally, we were led to believe that the identity of my overseas donor would be revealed around my one-year anniversary. But a call today to my COH transplant coordinator revealed that the donor center where my new stem cells were harvested has a 2-year policy for sharing the identity of the donor. Thus, we have another year to wait for that revelation. Still, we are a week away from the Aug. 22 anniversary of the transplant and life is good. What a difference a year makes! This flashback video from last April helps us recall the thrilling experience of witnessing more than 3000 people, the transplant survivors and their family members who were present for the annual BMT-SCT Reunion on the campus of City of Hope. ...

R.I.P BERNIE MAC 1957-2008 Originally uploaded by Eyes Wide Shut2008 Blogger's note: News about the death this last weekend of comedian Bernie Mac caught my attention in a specific way because I, too, was diagnosed with sarcoidosis more than 30 years ago. While my life-long experience with the disease is typical: a continuing benign state with little or no known consequencies, I racall a Denver doctor who cautioned: "Guard your respiratory health and watch out for pneumonia, a possible deadly mitigating circumstance. Well, now more than three decades later, I have not only survived pneumomia, but also a severe immune disorder that prompted mantle cell lymphoma, now in full remission. Yet, now is not the time to take anything for granted, as this story attests. .......... Those with sarcoidosis often live with fear of sudden death Andrea Wilson felt sick to her stomach Saturday when she heard comedian Bernie Mac had died in a Chicago hospital. It was her private fear—the fea...