Special Visitors! June 19 2011

Sandy Baird, the former Director of the University of Northern Colorado School of Nursing and her husband, Bill, came to visit this afternoon. Sandy was my boss at UNC for many of the years that we taught together and we retired within years of each other.

Sandy was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1999 when she was just 52 years of age. She went through chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant at the University of Colorado Hospital. She has done well until this summer when the multiple myeloma relapsed. She is back on chemotherapy and doing well.

We visited about how weird it is to have 2 friends end up with multiple myeloma when it is a fairly rare cancer. She validated a lot of my feelings like nothing tastes right or good; a "veil" of tiredness, etc.

Bill was helpful to Jani telling her how she would need to be at the doctor's rounds each morning after my stem cell transplant to get the "scoop" for the day. They were both very encouraging to us.

Sandy Baird and jm June 19 2011