Happy Birthday Virginia Garner

[Guest guest]

Dear Virginia,

Congratulations on your 10th CML Re-birthday. In your honor I would like to

list you as our poster person for 2009 and as a tribute to all of the doctors

who worked so tirelessly toward their goal. As you said, because of them, there

are 100,000 of us who are still here who probably not be otherwise. There are

only 100 deaths a year attributed to CML, so I would say that Gleevec was the

find of the 20th century. Thank you all for taking part in this trial, you

didn't know where it was taking you, yet it brought us all to where we are

today. So in wishing you many more years of prolonged happy living, you have my

sincere thanks and blessings.

An extra dose of blessings to all who took part in these early trials. I was

one of those on INF waiting for my turn to grasp the brass ring. Thanks to

Gleevec and the subsequent TKI's, I have lived nearly 13 years; many of them

bonus years that were prolonged because of Gleevec and the likes of others. It

was the stepping stone to yet another demension to my life, breaking barriers.

Blessings and many years of good living,

Lottie

" If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to

live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in

common hours. " (Henry Thoreau)