Photo courtesy of Renee Soriano
Renee Soriano
Arcadia, California
Acute myeloid leukemia at age 42 in 2016
Today: Since her August 2016 bone marrow transplant, Soriano, a human resources specialist, has focused on doing things that fulfill her, including reading, writing, cooking healthy food, trying out new coffee shops and going on adventures with her husband, Marvin, and their children, ages 13, 11 and 2. Before her diagnosis, Soriano says, she and Marvin tended to put off things they wanted to do. Now “instead of saying, ‘Oh, we’ll do this when we retire,’ or ‘Oh, we’ll do this when the kids are a little older,’ whatever it is, we’re doing it,” says Soriano. In the picture on the right, her family is shown on an improvised trip to the beach. “My little unit here, the five of us, is the most important thing in the world,” she says.