linda galbraith
so, my boss's wife died last night. she had been fighting a battle against scleroderma for a few years. she was almost completely immobile by the time she decided to start the risky process of a stem cell transplant to grow a new immune system. it's less risky for younger folks, but for someone like linda who was 60 years old, and whose case was pretty far along, it had a higher chance for failure. the stem cell transplant began with killing her existing immune system with chemotherapy, introducing the stem cells into her bone marrow, and then waiting. the chemo is really the risk factor here, just like it is with anyone who has to go down the chemo route.
when linda first began the stem cell transplantation, she started this blog. her health began to fail, and she made bob, my boss, promise to keep up with posting to it. she had a strong passion to educate other patients as well as doctors who had never seen the disease. true to his word, bob updated the blog almost every day. it was really hard to read some posts, knowing bob personally, knowing that he was an "i don't do feelings" kind of guy. reading his beautiful and emotional posts about his wife was both insightful and sad.
bob said the other day that linda knew that this disease would eventually take her life... but that didn't mean she wasn't going down without a fight. she was an incredibly strong and brave woman, and she is finally at rest now. now the hard part will begin for bob. like i said, he's an "i don't do feelings" kind of guy, so i can't even begin to wonder how i might be able to help him. the least i can do is be his ambassador to some meetings that he was supposed to attend this coming month, to fly the bob/nbme flag.
when someone in your peripheral life dies, it always makes you think of your own losses and it drives home the fact that this awful thing will one day happen to you if you're lucky enough to love someone. what a double-edged sword.
when linda first began the stem cell transplantation, she started this blog. her health began to fail, and she made bob, my boss, promise to keep up with posting to it. she had a strong passion to educate other patients as well as doctors who had never seen the disease. true to his word, bob updated the blog almost every day. it was really hard to read some posts, knowing bob personally, knowing that he was an "i don't do feelings" kind of guy. reading his beautiful and emotional posts about his wife was both insightful and sad.
bob said the other day that linda knew that this disease would eventually take her life... but that didn't mean she wasn't going down without a fight. she was an incredibly strong and brave woman, and she is finally at rest now. now the hard part will begin for bob. like i said, he's an "i don't do feelings" kind of guy, so i can't even begin to wonder how i might be able to help him. the least i can do is be his ambassador to some meetings that he was supposed to attend this coming month, to fly the bob/nbme flag.
when someone in your peripheral life dies, it always makes you think of your own losses and it drives home the fact that this awful thing will one day happen to you if you're lucky enough to love someone. what a double-edged sword.