The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is proud to offer telephone education programs for blood cancer patients and their caregivers. These programs, which require free registration, are both informative and interactive for those dealing with specific types of blood cancer or certain treatment topics.

Free registration is now available for these upcoming October programs.

October 14, 2009 - Treating Uncommon Lymphomas: Dialogue with an Expert on T-Cell, Malt, and Waldenström Macroglobulinemia

October 29, 2009 – Managing Myeloma: An Expert’s Update

Check the National Education Programs page often to see what is available, or visit any of the archive pages to listen to past programs, download transcripts or to access highlights from many of the past programs (archive pages can be found in each disease education series section – for example, there is a link to the archived programs on the Myeloma Education Series page).

Need assistance? Call the Information Resource Center at (800) 955-4572 and someone will be able to answer your question or steer you in the right direction.

A few weeks ago we shared a post on financial insecurity and blood cancer treatment, sharing with you some helpful links to information and programs provided by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). In this post, we wanted to highlight the personal side of our Co-Pay Assistance Program and share with you a couple of stories about myeloma patients who have benefited from this program.

Kalimah Jenkins, a 44-year-old African American from Atlanta, GA, was stunned to find out that her bone pain and fatigue were symptoms of myeloma, a difficult blood cancer. She was equally as shocked when she found out how expensive her treatment would be, and wasn’t sure how she would be able to pay for the drugs she needed. It was in her favor that her doctors knew about LLS’s Co-Pay Assistance Program, which helped her pay for her critical treatment.

Cislyn Blackwood, a 60-year-old from Fresno, CA, also a myeloma patient, has also benefited from the Co-Pay Assistance Program. Her treatment was already very expensive, but after being laid off from her job and her COBRA benefits running out, her financial situation became ever more challenging. She received the funds she needed through LLS's Co-Pay Assistance Program and was able to pay for her medication.

Both women say that LLS’s program has been a tremendous help, and are grateful that they found out about it; unfortunately, some myeloma patients who can’t afford it wind up going off of life-saving treatment.

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with myeloma, visit www.lls.org/copay or call (877) LLS-COPAY to find out if you or they qualify for assistance. Note that other blood cancer patients may quality for assistance as well.

If you are a doctor, visit www.lls.org/copayproviders to find out how you can apply for the Co-Pay Assistance Program on behalf of your patients.

Learn more about Kalimah’s and Cislyn’s stories.

September is an important month for us at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). It is a special time when our ongoing collaboration with patients, caregivers and medical professionals is highlighted by our campaign for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma awareness. Please join us in this campaign to educate more people about blood cancer.

Here are some quick facts* you can share on your own websites, blogs, social networks or in conversations with friends.

• Today more than 894,000 people in the United States are living with a type of blood cancer.

• Today about 75 percent of children with acute leukemia and nearly 80 percent of children and adults with Hodgkin lymphoma are cured.

• Every ten minutes someone dies from a blood cancer.

• An estimated 52,910 people will die from a blood cancer this year.

• Since LLS began in 1949, our organization has invested more than $600 million in research to find cures and better therapies.

• This year alone, LLS will dedicate $71.4 million to research.

Another thing you can do this month is help our Public Policy team work to get September officially recognized as Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma Awareness Month by your state. How does this help? It ensures that there will be more media coverage around the month, which means more people will learn about blood cancers. It also means more people could support the fight to eradicate cancer. Contact your local LLS chapter to learn more about how you can help.

Learn more about leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma on the LLS website at www.LLS.org, or contact the Information Resource Center with any blood cancer questions.

*Note that these statistics are for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma only.

Today we are launching The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s first blog! There are a few things that we hope to accomplish with this new communication tool, but most of all we want to make this an informative and interesting destination for you: patients, caregivers, and anyone else affected by any of the blood cancers.

A few topics we plan to cover are advocacy, teleconferences, news articles, and more…

We’d love to get ideas from you, though. What do YOU want us to write about? (To comment you must first register if you haven’t already – registration is easy and free!)

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