When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in October 2009, I knew exactly where I wanted to go for my cancer treatment.

Because with MD Anderson’s help, my late mother astonished everyone by living an additional 15 years with a very rare form of cancer called liposarcoma. And by 2009, I’d been working at MD Anderson for more than a decade — first as a nurse in the operating room unit, later as a nurse in the business office of...