Sudbury marches in support of myeloma patients

In the Lively area of Greater Sudbury on Saturday, the first ever march in the city to raise money and awareness in support of people living with multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma is a lesser known blood cancer with no cure.

Walkers took to the trails in Fielding Park in the area’s first-ever Walk the Walk Make Myeloma Matter March. The national event is Myeloma Canada's biggest fundraiser and has been for the past 14 years.

“Our mission is simple we want to improve all the lives of Canadians impacted by myeloma; empowering the community, by awareness, education and advocacy programs and to support research to find a cure,” Patricia Celestine, of Myeloma Canada, said.

Della Krieger was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 15 months ago.

“Multiple Myeloma is a blood cancer; it attacks the plasma in your bone marrow. And for me specifically, it attacked my spine,” Krieger told CTV News.

Krieger knows first hand how important support is and worked to help establish a support group in Sudbury.

“That's what we need the support group for. We need to help these people when they are diagnosed or when they relapse because there is a very high incidents of relapse with multiple myeloma, so it's scary and we need to be able to help people.”

Kimm Heckman is a registered nurse who has taken care of many myeloma patients, was in attendance to support the march.

“You just become so connected, so connected with them, usually their primary caregiver, so their husband or wife or whoever it is. And also multiple myeloma seems to be affecting younger and younger people, so we are seeing people in their 30's now and before it used to be an older age group,” Heckman shared.

More than one hundred people took part in the march Saturday.

The goal was to raise $10,000 locally, but walkers surpassed that by raising over $13,000.