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SALT LAKE CITY — Dana Pollock spent 119 days in the hospital getting treatment for blood cancer.
"It was like home to me," she said of the facility at LDS Hospital, where a new waiting room now bears her name.
It's been four years since Pollock received a clean bill of health, but she'll never forget the experience.
"I feel special (to be a survivor)," said Pollock, 69. "It's like I'm extra alive. Every day is that much better."
Intermountain Healthcare has opened a larger clinic at the hospital in the Avenues, specifically to treat patients with blood cancers such as Pollock's chronic myelomonocytic leukemia.
"As the need for our services grew, it became increasingly difficult to accommodate the growing number of patients in a healing environment that is necessary," said Dr. Finn Petersen, a cancer specialist at the hospital.
He said a blood cancer diagnosis, like any cancer diagnosis, sends patients on "a difficult journey."
"They need to find the strength to perform the hard work it is to become whole again," Petersen said, adding that a patient's environment can make a difference in the outcome.
The new 9,000-square-foot space at the hospital, he said, is "perfectly designed to facilitate the best of the art of medicine that we can deliver."
Hospital administrator Jim Sheets said the newly enlarged clinic was in the works for a long time, but a $1.5 million donation from the James B. and Lynette Loveland Family Foundation, as well as others from the community, made it happen more quickly than anticipated.
James Loveland, a founder of Xactware in Orem, died at age 54 from acute myeloid leukemia in 2005. He was treated at LDS Hospital for more than a year after his diagnosis.
"He had two bone marrow transplants. He didn't make it, but that gave us a lot of time," Lynette Loveland said Thursday.
The clinic, with its 13 spacious patient/exam rooms, large infusion center with nine chairs and 11 beds for chemotherapy administration, will serve an average of 27 patients each day. It also offers an expanded apheresis center where blood stem cells are collected from donors.
The facility is one of two in the area that will serve blood and bone marrow transplant patients, acute leukemia patients and donors throughout the Intermountain West. It will begin accepting patients on Monday.
"I identify with the people who are going through the same experience James and I went through," Lynette Loveland said. "If I can help make that experience better by improving the clinic, that's my passion, and I know Jim would be proud of that legacy."
The family and its foundation are active in the community and on various boards and among nonprofit organizations. They also helped fund the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper.
