John D Hemmingsen

Gifted Life – A Healing Odyssey

The story of my experience with
a rare type of acute myeloid leukemia.

Gifted Life – A Healing Odyssey

Some dates are forever branded in your memory.
September 25, 2013 is one of those dates for me. It was the day we received the phone call from the Knight Cancer Center in Beaverton, Oregon.
I’ll never forget it. In that moment I embarked on a journey, a journey that has enriched and redirected my life.
I listened carefully to the long-distance voice tell me, gently yet clearly, that recent tests showed I had a life-threatening disease called Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).
I was informed that my treatment was scheduled to start in less than two weeks.
I immediately realized that the road ahead would be unlike any other I had travelled.
This is the story of my healing odyssey.