Stronger Together: Mark’s journey with CLL
Nearly ten years after being diagnosed with a chronic form of blood cancer, Mark Silverstein credits his family, his health care team, and his passion for helping others battling illness with keeping him focused on the future.
An important part of Mark Silverstein’s day is his morning ritual of making coffee for his wife Nelia at their Aurora, ON home. For most people, it would be a small gesture. But for Mark, it’s a precious window of normalcy in a life that’s often overshadowed by illness.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a cancer of the blood in which the bone marrow produces too many abnormal lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). Although it is a leukemia by name, CLL behaves, and is treated, like other slowly progressing lymphomas. Approximately 2,200 people in Canada are diagnosed with CLL each year.
Now 54, Mark has been living with CLL for the last nine years. His journey has taken him through multiple rounds of therapies, several relapses, a bone marrow transplant, and, most recently, a third relapse. Mark credits his wife and care partner, Nelia, his hematologist, Dr. Peter Anglin, and biomedical innovation for keeping him one step ahead of the disease.
Finding solace in service
Living with CLL proves both challenging and frustrating. “Every day, there’s something going on,” he says. “I had to work hard, and not always successfully, to accept that my body doesn’t work the same way it used to. I can’t do all the things I want to do.”
But the disease has also given Mark a renewed purpose in life. After his first line of treatment, he joined a group program to help him through the emotional challenges that accompany living with a chronic disease. It was here that his therapist encouraged him to pursue a career in psychotherapy.
He took her advice and is now a registered psychotherapist building a private practice. He also continues to volunteer his time with cancer support groups at hospices in Aurora, King City, and Richmond Hill. This September, he started a CLL-specific support group at Wellspring Westerkirk House on the Sunnybrook Hospital campus.
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