In 2015, there will be an estimated 1.7 million people diagnosed with cancer. Just 12,000 will be diagnosed with Sarcoma – a rare disease with limited funding for services and research.
Linda Noack Wiener was an event planner, catering director in the hotel industry, and more importantly to her: Oma (Dutch for grandmother), wife, daughter and mother.
Linda’s parents were survivors of the Holocaust, and in a twist of irony, Linda was taken from us on Holocaust Memorial Day, April 16, 2015 after a courageous battle against Liposarcoma. She was one of the most selfless people you could have ever met, a bright light in the world, who was taken too soon. In her memory, this initiative was established to provide informational and financial support to families affected by Sarcoma.
Receiving a cancer diagnosis is daunting. What made matters worse for our family was that there was no template in place to provide us with any guidance to both take advantage of the opportunities available to us, and to deal with the emotional and physical pain and stress caused by cancer. It is for this reason, in honor of Linda, we have created Sarcoma-Oma.org.
We were blessed that we could afford to take advantage of the opportunities that we created. We were not restricted to travel due to either employment or financial limitations. We know this is not the case for all patients. We will be putting in place a patient funding program to cover the costs associated with travel for treatment.