I am a wife and caregiver.  My husband was diagnosed with CML in June of 1998 and received a stem cell transplant in October of 2000.  Our only child was 2 years old at that time and we relocated to another state to receive the transplant.  The entire process took a year longer than we expected and our lives changed.  Complications, struggles in our relationship, raising a child, financial issues, and everything about my husband's day to day health and hospital visits was an ordeal.  Our situation was not unique to the world of cancer nor was it abnormal in the world at the Bone Marrow Unit.  But nine years later I'm sitting here wondering where time has gone.  So many things have happened but life continued to move forward.  We always knew in the back of our minds that the transplant was only a temporary fix and the leukemia or another cancer may be a concern again.  In 2008, we were given the news that my husband had a sarcoma in his nasal cavity which was the possible side effect of his radiation during his stem cell transplant in 2000.  So after extensive surgery to remove the cancer, reconstructive surgery, and 6 weeks of radiation he was on his way to a great recovery.  I'm writing because I would like to encourage all of you to have great confidence in your physicians, community resources, other patients/and their families, but mostly yourself because my husband has shown me and many who love him that this can be beaten.  We will always live with cancer but we can live with it and enjoy all the possibilites that life has to offer by just waking up each day.  And do know my husband continues to take tons of medication and has visits to the Dr's often but it's such apart of our lives that it doesn't seem so overwhelming anymore.  In some sense Leukemia has truly taught me the lesson to value all that I have even if it's not much.  I'll send many warm wishes your way and as we say here in Hawaii "ALOHA."