~Diagnosed Acute
Mylogenous Leukemia, M1/with Normal Chromosomes, 4/99~
~Autologous Stem Cell Transplant 11/30/99 at Virginia Mason Hospital,
Seattle, Washington~
~Relapsed 3/00 - Semi-Remission Achieved 3.31.00~
~Relapsed 6/01/00 - Mylotarg on board 6/13 and 6/27 and still looking
up!~
C.C.'s visit to Virginia Mason Hospital for
his Stemcell Transplant started on November 22, 1999 when he
checked into his home away from home on the 15th floor.
His room number was 1578 and, as usual, we attempted to make it as
homey as possible. The pictures in the background of this photo with
nurse Nancy and C.C. were those that were brought on C.C.'s first visit
to VM in April '99. His co-workers from Boeing Company learned that
real flowers were a no-no so Jackie Twilly, a close co-worker, found
five beautiful floral posters, glued them to poster board and
distributed them to the five Boeing locations that C.C. visited
regularly at work. He would bring them with him on his longer stays in
the hospital just to brighten his room and remember his friends.
On C.C.'s very first visit, April 12, 1999, he was in the hospital for
about 5 weeks. He was very sick when he first arrived and was on oxygen
for almost a 10 days. To brighten his room, I sent him a bouquet of
balloons. They were so big that they almost set off the fire alarms
when the delivery person brought them upstairs and into his room. They
lasted over 6 weeks and was a wonderful way to brighten his room. We
had also taken photos of grandchildren, photos of him and I along with
a huge photo of his American Eskimo Dog, "Ruby". In fact, Ruby was able
to make a canine visit around the third week to the hospital. She not
only got to visit "Dad", she also visited another patient who had not
seen his pet for almost two months. That was a very nice day...she
brought smiles to a lot of faces...!
The song you are listening to is one of our favorites...It's called "From
A Distance" sung by Bette Middler and reflects our feelings
of exactly where we feel we are in this great scheme of things.. The
lyrics are as follows......
From a distance the world looks blue and green, and
the snow-capped mountains white. From a distance the ocean meets the
stream, and the eagle takes to flight.
From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land. It's
the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace, it's the voice of every
man.
From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need. And there
are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed.
From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band. Playing
songs of hope, playing songs of peace. They're the songs of every man.
God is watching us. God is watching us. God is watching us from a
distance.
From a distance you look like my friend, even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for.
From a distance there is harmony, and it echoes through the land. And
it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves, it's the heart of every
man.
It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves. This is the song of
every man. And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching
us from a distance. Oh, God is watching us, God is watching. God is
watching us from a distance.
Although Cees is still working through this difficult disease, we are
taking it one day at a time. We know God has been watching us through
all of this, not just from a distance, He's been right there with us.
Sometimes even holding us up when it's too difficult to stand on our
own. It's not been easy, it's been a difficult and scary trip to get to
where we are...but we continue to keep looking up and out into that
distance, holding on to the hope and promise that the rainbows in this
background holds. That through faith and trust in Him, we will get
through this! We will continue to look up and fight, for we are in it
to win...we have that promise of victory!
We hope this site holds some peace and strength for those that visit.
I'll be adding more pages as we continue our journey so come back and
visit often.
Please feel free to e-mail us at anytime. Sign our guestbook and let us
know you've been to our site, who you are and if you have any prayer
requests we can help with.
from home on the 15th floor.
His room number was 1578 and, as usual, we attempted to make it as
homey as possible. The pictures in the background of this photo with
nurse Nancy and C.C. were those that were brought on C.C.'s first visit
to VM in April '99. His co-workers from Boeing Company learned that
real flowers were a no-no so Jackie Twilly, a close co-worker, found
five beautiful floral posters, glued them to poster board and
distributed them to the five Boeing locations that C.C. visited
regularly at work. He would bring them with him on his longer stays in
the hospital just to brighten his room and remember his friends. 
