Coffee with All4Cure - Cindy (3/3)

I haven't seen my parents in person in over a year which is really hard. I'm one of four kids and my parents were very intentional about how they raised us. They taught us to be good citizens--kind, loving, hard working, educated, and family-focused. I'm really fortunate to have had the kind of upbringing that I did. After I was diagnosed with myeloma, one of the blessings that really came out of it was that I left California and went up to Seattle to live with my parents while I was receiving treatment because they live just two miles from the clinic. When I initially went up, I was only supposed to be there for three months. The specialists in Seattle felt my disease was more aggressive than originally believed so they recommended a tandem autogenic and allogenic stem cell transplants. This lengthened my stay to 10 months. Living with them as an adult, I got a different appreciation for their relationship and got closer to them. My older brother who lives in Michigan ended up being my donor for my allogeneic stem cell transplant so he was here with us for a couple of weeks. My other two siblings live in Seattle so all of us got some time together, just my parents and the adult children without any spouses or grandchildren. It was a lovely silver lining that definitely brought us all closer together.