Stories of Hope

  Diagnosed with WM in 1990, Lisa Wise has been mindfully practicing social distancing long before it was popular worldwide. After almost seven years of watch and wait, Lisa was treated with Bendamustine and Rituxan to address complications from bulky disease....

In the summer of 2014, I became slightly short of breath during a hike up a granite dome mountain called “The Thumb” at Sequoia National Park. This was highly unusual for me. I have been a high-energy person my entire life, working in the construction industry for 40...

Published in the IWMF Torch , November 2014, pages 15-18 *Updated January 2020* Jennifer Hoegerman’s life is, by every measure, an active one filled with parental and professional commitments, volunteerism of a challenging sort, an enthusiasm for the outdoor life...

I will never forget the phone call that changed our lives. It was in the autumn of 1998 when my sister and I received a call from my mother. She was extremely upset. Our father had just received a call from his doctor who reported his lab work showed a very low...

Yes, such a pregnancy is possible, and here I am, pictured with my son who is almost five years old and who is the joy of my life. It all started in January of 2013, when I was 35 years old. I went to see an endocrinologist because I suspected I might have diabetes....

Michael’s story was first published on www.iwmf.com  on December 3, 2015. This update to the story is a reprint from the Leukaemia Foundation of Australia’s June 2019 issue of Lymphoma News. Michael van Ewijk “hasn’t looked back” since September 2014 when he started...

I’ve come to learn that none of us with WM has a “typical” journey. This very rare blood cancer affects us all so differently, not just with symptoms, treatments, and severity, but also with age of diagnosis. When I was 28 and a new mom to my first child, elevated IgM...

Being diagnosed with an incurable cancer is an experience that no one wants to have. But, it certainly gets the attention of those so diagnosed. One asks: what does it mean? What next? What can be done? How much time do I have left? Many such questions go through...

Ryan’s story was first published in the in the IWMF Torch, January 2015, page 21. This is an update to that story. I was diagnosed with WM in 2010 when I was 35. At the time, my son was barely a year old. I had moved to Chicago with my wife twelve months earlier. We...

This is an update to ROGER’S STORY published on www.iwmf.com ON DECEMBER 11, 2014   Multiple cycles of chemo and relapse, followed by an autologous stem cell transplant. The photo shows the last of my hair coming off during transplant!        I was diagnosed at...

I have had a long journey with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.  I have had good news and bad news during this period, but the good news has been with me for over sixteen years.  I hope it lasts a whole lot longer.  I was diagnosed with WM in August, 1998 and started...

Chris’s  story was first published on www.iwmf.com on September 15, 2014, with the author’s approval, as a reprint from the Cancer Support Community of Lehigh Valley, www.cancersupportglv.org/get-support/stories-of-hope/chris(link is external). Chris’ 2018 update to...

During his “compulsory ‘me’ time” at his local café in Byron Bay, Australia in September 2017, David received an email about a new international Phase III clinical trial for Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM), comparing two targeted therapies – ibrutinib and...

It has been 8 years and 5 months since my husband Mark was diagnosed with a disease that the oncologist we had only met a few days earlier had to spell out. If you are here at the International Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia Foundation’s website, then chances are...

Story first published in the IWMF Torch Magazine in October 2012, pages 13, 34-35. Update published on www.iwmf.com  in September 2018 My Work on the Rituximab Core Team It all began in 1971 when, armed with a BS in Chemistry and an MBA, I began my career at Cutter...

To put my story into context, you need to know that I had been a personal trainer and a fitness instructor for many years. So I know my body better than most. I ate very healthily for the most part, and I was teaching a minimum of six high-intensity classes per week....

Some four years ago, at the age of 70, my wife and I pulled up stakes and left Iowa, where we had resided for 32 years, to move to the State College area in Pennsylvania. This would allow us to be more active participants in the lives of our two grandchildren. As...

Bob Rupert, a WM patient, discusses how WM has affected his life and his family, and how he approaches living with the disease. His story and his message reinforce the reality that, given the options available to us today, WM is a disease that can be “lived with”,...

  “Get your affairs in order.” “You have a rare, incurable blood cancer called Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.” “Average survival rate is 6 years.” “Given your symptoms and blood test values, we have to treat immediately.” Those were jarring words for someone in...

My life so far has been an exciting journey, punctuated by a cascade of medical events. Never a dull moment. You don’t know how you’ll respond to bad news until you are faced with it. I’ve had plenty, but there has always been hope. It began the day I was born a...