Late last month, a sudden cold snap swept down from the Arctic and caused tem­per­a­tures here to plunge to almost 30 degrees Fahr­en­heit (15 degrees Celsius) lower than nor­mal. From a nice warm autumn, with lovely golden leaves and even some flowers still in bloom, a heavy snowfall blanketed the land and caused a sparkly landscape. The prob­lem was that it was really cold. We scrambled to find our parkas, mitts, hats, and boots.

We had winter tires put on one of our vehicles, and my hus­band Dilip got out …

There is no denying that each of us with mul­ti­ple myeloma has an idea about sur­vival and what it means. According to the online dic­tio­nary that I use, sur­vival is “the state of continuing to live or exist in spite of a dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stance.”

So in our case, the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stance is can­cer; if we see another sun­rise, we are sur­viving.

I like sur­vival. Survival is good. It is some­thing that I really, really desire. Without being political, I unabashedly vote for sur­vival!

However, just using or ac­cepting that definition of …

Seven months ago, after hav­ing smol­der­ing myeloma for 10 years, I crossed over into the ‘active’ dis­ease category. Thankfully, there was no dramatic myeloma defining event, just a painful bone mar­row biopsy that showed 60 per­cent plasma cells. How long I have been at 60 per­cent, I have no idea, which makes the de­ci­sion to proceed with treat­ment a dif­fi­cult one for me.

Back in March, when Covid-19 was start­ing to grip my region, my doctor agreed that it would be prudent to hold off on treat­ment, as Seattle was …

Elaine was a fiery red head who loved her family, open water sailing, and Schlotszky’s sand­wiches. She was mother to my best friend and grand­mother to our god­children. She was care­giver to her hus­band, whose can­cer took him sev­er­al years ago, and she was my friend.

She was also a patient.

In one of life’s ironic tragedies, Elaine tran­si­tioned from can­cer care­giver to can­cer warrior when she was diag­nosed with ad­vanced stage mantle cell lym­phoma in 2012. Elaine became a patient at the can­cer center where we live …

I cannot help but at least con­sider the idea that some part of my having can­cer was my fault. No, I am not beating myself up. To do so would be terribly cruel and unfair. Life provides us with that in ad­e­quate doses as is. I cer­tainly do not need to add on to that. However, in spite of all evi­dence to the contrary, it has been con­sidered at times in the dark recesses of my small mind.

Before being diag­nosed, I did not smoke. I was a mod­er­ate drinker, …

Last fall, as my hus­band and I were getting ready to leave the house, we saw a bobcat walking on our deck. At the same time, we also noticed a large porcupine sitting in a crabapple tree that overhung the deck.

We had never seen a bobcat or a porcupine on or near our deck, and seeing them was unnerving to me, even though we've not en­coun­tered these two animals in our garden since then.

Along the same lines, a scary incident oc­curred along an estuary when we …

Since the pan­dem­ic began, I’ve been spending my days at home on my half-acre prop­er­ty, which I long ago nicknamed ‘SoFUH,’ which stands for Sokol Family Urban Homestead.

When I’m not out work­ing the land, and by that I mean dead-heading rho­do­den­drons, fuchsias, and geraniums, pulling weeds, or picking green beans and chard, I can be found inside either messing up or clean­ing up the kitch­en, perched on the sofa videoconferencing with loved ones, cor­re­spond­ing, reading, re­search­ing, or mending.

When that got old, I found myself looking around …

I wrote my first column for The Beacon last summer not really know­ing what to ex­pect. At the time, I had two major con­cerns. 

The first con­cern was that I had never really written much for pub­lic con­sump­tion, so I was un­cer­tain about my ability to connect with an audience or provide a reason­ably in­ter­est­ing take on living with mul­ti­ple myeloma. 

The other con­cern has been the always present un­cer­tainty as to whether or not I would still be around to write about my ex­peri­ence.

Well, here I am, 11 …