Poetry touches the personal and the universal. Other people’s experiences remind me of my own, and the written word offers personal nourishment that often speaks to the truth of the multiple myeloma experience.

Awaiting the blossoms and sun of springtime, I came upon a small consoling poem by the Buddhist sage, Huang Po:

“Without undergoing a winter that bites into your bones, how can the plum blossoms regale you with their piercing fragrance?”

And so it is for people living …

“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar,” said Pablo Picasso. However, the bath does melt aches and pains that multiple myeloma patients often encounter.

According to one study, about 60 per­cent of myeloma patients endure bone disease in the forms of vertebral compression fractures and osteolytic lesions. Myeloma cells push aside normal bone-forming cells, causing weakened bones that fracture easily. Bone involvement is a perma­nent feature …

Someone recently joked that films should come with warning labels, such as “Beware, this movie features people with cancer who die in the end.” Sometimes light humorous entertainment is the best medicine.

While I was recovering from treatments, the sofa, television, and DVD’s became my refuge. Movies light up the mind with imagery and ideas that can take you away from pain and worry, but I usually hope for more than simple escape—an engaging story. I began to notice all …

A friend recently mentioned that her new task in life is to ask for the impossible. This idea captured my imagination because so much of living with multiple myeloma is about asking for the best possible outcomes that often feel impossible. Each case of myeloma is so individual, as evidenced by the variety of stories I have read here on The Myeloma Beacon.

Storytelling seems to be a natural reaction to illness. Writing about our experiences may even raise our …

Strings of colored lights brighten the darkness of the season. Last week, a winter solstice full moon ornamented the sky with a radiant glow. I hoped to catch a glimpse of the rare lunar eclipse, but all I could see from my location was a veil of snowy clouds behind tall treetops—no moon glow in sight. And so it is living with multiple myeloma—much is hidden from view, such as abnormal cells and holes in bones.

Soon we mark the …

I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma during December of 2003 at a time just before social networking and blogging took off. I spent a lot of days hospitalized without Internet access. I look back and think about what a nice diversion and support it may have been to be able to connect with others via the Internet.

As I recovered and moved beyond illness to my “new normal” life, I lost track of much of the medical terminology of my …