UPDATE: Jenny passed away at home on April 2, 2013 surrounded by her family and loved ones.
Jenny Ann Hall Steelquist. September 19, 1952 – April 2, 2013
This is Jenny. She is an artist, musician, mother, wife and dear friend.
She was diagnosed wth Multiple Myeloma Cancer Stage III with disease cytogenetic markers deletion of 13 and a translocation of 4;14 (aka Bad Cytogenetics). That’s quite a mouthful of words.
For several years Jenny thought she had a bad hip. But, the bad hip was really early indications of bone loss due to blood cancer. This has left all of us, family and friends, in great shock.
As some of you know, since September, in my classes, I have been dedicating my pies to her healing.
Tomorrow she is heading to Seattle to meet the bone marrow transplant team and find out if her sons, Daniel or Peter, have blood with the recquired HLA factors in order to be her donors.
She will be having two transplants and will have to stay in Seattle for a nine month period. The boys and her husband, Bob, will be close by during the ordeal.
If Peter and Daniel are not matches for their mom, perhaps you might be. And moreover you might be a match for someone else! I just registered today with the Be the Match Registry. It’s something small I can do beyond making a pie, which over the next nine months, I will be bringing on a regular basis to Bob, Pete, Daniel and Jenny.
Perhaps you feel called to register to become a donor, too. It’s easy to do, and you just might save a life.
Thanks Kate for the warm words and most of all, for getting the word out about the bone marrow registry. We look forward to more of your visits, more music and, of course, more of that fabulous cooking.
bob
[…] Can you tell me about dedicating your pies to the healing of your friend who has cancer? Is there a tradition of pie as […]
I was so sorry and sad to hear of Jenny’s passing. I remember her from West Seattle High School. I wasn’t one of the popular kids, and in junior high I was treated pretty badly by a lot of kids, but Jenny was always so nice and treated me the same as anyone else. I ran into her some years ago at one of the “All School” reunions at WSHS, and she bolted right over to say hello and relate a funny story about a class we’d been in together and said she thought about that once or twice a year. That meant a lot. My deepest sympathy to her family and friends. A bright light has gone out.