It
is desperately sad that Yvonne May, director of Wine Australia Europe
has lost her battle against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. She took
extended leave from her post in April and there was then optimism that
the disease had been caught in time. Sadly this optimism proved to be
misplaced and Yvonne died on Friday 29th August aged 53.
Here
are a few photos of Yvonne that I took last November at the Young Wine
Writers of the Year Award held at Australia House, London.
My thoughts and condolences are with David, her partner, and Yvonne's family.
With the pianist – watching the award's ceremony
With Steven Spurrier and Hugh Jones (2013 Young Wine Writer)
With the two runners up
1 comment:
Jim, this sad note is the perfect illustration and complement to our previous topics : fund raising.
ALL is mostly a disease of the young (peak prevalence 2-5 y o a) and exact frequencies in adults are difficult to estimate in most countries. Our health systems are not good at reporting its occurence with certainty. One talks of 6.000 cases in the US of A each year, for instance.
Its prognosis is still NOT good in adults – but, as you pointed out, early treatment is crucial - whereas advances in treatment (hence fund raising) have led to an improvement in children in recent years, with over 80 % cure rates in that age category. In this particular disease, one of the “primary blood cells” in the marrow, just downstream of the stem cell, exhibits signs of faulty regulation (for many reasons) and from there on, all the bood cell lines (white BC, red BC and platelets) behave in a “funny way”, leading to the symptoms, directly or indirectly. Drugs targeting the genetic defects of the leukaemic cells will greatly improve prognosis, and so will the understanding of the pathogenesis leading to the faulty lymphoblastic transformation. All this calls for research and hence, money.
I’m not sure old age and its consequences (such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease) will ever be eradicated, but ALL, in due time, will be a disease physicians will be able to tackle with success in the vast majority of cases. In the meantime, we’re left with very sad occurences like the one you report : we hate to see people prematurely leaving us, especially when no accident or “unavoidable” infection or metabolic disease is involved. It is so unfair.
My condolences to Mrs. May’s family and friends too.
Post a Comment