In Memory of Roy Scheider
I take particular interest when I see an obituary that mentions that the person in question had multiple myeloma. That is because my mom has multiple myeloma.
From what I can gather, Scheider died at 75 today after being treated for two years for multiple myeloma. The difference between him and my mother is that she was blessed to find out she had it in a very early stage and has been living with it for almost 13 years now.
Someone has already updated his Wikipedia page and says that Scheider was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2004 and had a bone marrow transplant in 2005. They mention that he was in “partial remission”, though I know that doctors are not keen on using the word remission with patients who have multiple myeloma. His death is being attributed to a staph infection – which is very common in healthcare settings. In fact, I have written various blog articles about the very serious threat of staph and MRSA in our community.
My heart goes out to the family of this wonderful actor. I have always liked the guy, more so than most actors.