Doctors are getting ready to inject people with the Zika virus.

For almost four decades, blood cancer survivors who received bone marrow, or stem cell, transplants have returned to City of Hope to celebrate life, second chances and science. The first reunion, in 1976, was a small affair: spaghetti for a single patient, his brother who served as his donor and those who took care of him, including Stephen Forman, M.D., Francis & Kathleen McNamara Distinguished Chair in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.

While in political circles the historical handshake between Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro was both applauded and condemned, in aseptic hospital hallways it signaled a path to a medical collaboration that had remained untouched for more than six decades.

Patients coping with cancer, and their caregivers, often experience a complex array of emotions including anxiety, fear, depression, frustration and sadness — feelings that, for some, may be difficult to express in a traditional support group.

“You’re not in remission.”