Living Your Full Range of Emotions with Myeloma

Audrey joined the HealthTree Foundation as the Myeloma Community Program Director in 2020. While not knowing much about myeloma at the start, she has since worked hard to educate herself, empathize and learn from others' experiences. She loves this job. Audrey is passionate about serving others, loves learning, and enjoys a nice mug of hot chocolate no matter the weather.

Heather Wishik was born in New York City and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wishik has lived for extended ex-patriot periods in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Karachi, Pakistan, and speaks some conversational French and Dutch. She holds a B.A. from Goddard College, a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law, and an Honours degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, as well as a Certificate in Group Process Facilitation, from the University of South Africa (UNISA). Heather is retired from a long career as a consultant and executive leading diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the for-profit, not for profit and government sectors. Her earlier careers included pre-school and elementary school teaching and the practice and teaching of law, including at Vermont Law School and Dartmouth College. Before her May, 2020 retirement from full time employment she served as the first Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for The Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest conservation organization. These days she is busy making art- primarily collages and printmaking – and writing poems. She will have her first one-woman art show in May at the Kellogg- Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont where she lives with her spouse of forty-two years, Susan. They are the proud parents of one son, Gabriel, who is a medical doctor in Boston. Wishik was diagnosed with aggressive and genetically high-risk multiple myeloma in 2020 and underwent an autologous stem cell transplant at Dartmouth Medical Center in March of 2021. She has been in virtual remission since.