Marjorie Smith's Archive

Marjorie Smith writes a monthly column for The Myeloma Beacon titled "Living For Lamingtons." She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June 2015 at the age of 57. At the time of her diagnosis, Marjorie and her husband Graham were living in Singapore. After induction therapy, Marjorie had an autologous stem cell transplant and is now in remission and on maintenance therapy. She and Graham are still living in Singapore and enjoy life in Southeast Asia, but they hope to return to their home in Scotland in the not-too-distant future. For over 30 years, Marjorie has taught high school biology and been involved with the development and delivery of new curricular materials. Her focus is on creating novel resources and teaching approaches to help teachers raise controversial scientific issues with their students. Marjorie loves walking, bird watching, chatting, and reading.

Marjorie Smith has written 27 article(s) .

[ by | Apr 16, 2020 6:23 pm | 15 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Life On Hold

This column will be dif­fer­en­t from my pre­vi­ous ones. I’ve been struggling to find the right words.

I can’t pretend: I am frustrated. In fact, I’m very frustrated about the current situation. I imagine I’m not the only one, so I decided to share my thoughts here.

It seems as if, at the moment, nor­mal life is on hold. Every day brings more terrible news about the spread of the latest coronavirus dis­ease, or COVID-19, across the globe. Cases in­crease …

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[ by | Oct 28, 2019 5:48 pm | 12 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Managing Risk

Life is risky!

I know that is true and I also know that being diag­nosed with multiple myeloma has altered my concept of risk.

Right from the start of my life with multiple myeloma, I became aware of taking new risks.

There was the risks asso­ci­ated with having a stem cell trans­plant. The doctors and nurses highlighted them to me. It seemed a risk worth taking, but it did make me think much more deeply about the de­ci­sions we make …

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[ by | Sep 18, 2019 3:05 pm | 6 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Learning About Depression In Unexpected Ways

About four and a half years ago, prior to my multiple myeloma diag­nosis, I started to have lots of health issues that were pre­vi­ously unknown to me.

The ones that initially affected me most severely were back and rib pain and breathlessness when I exercised. I had slipped when hill walking, and I thought I might have pulled a muscle or even broken a rib. I couldn’t find any reason for the breathlessness, but I thought I might have …

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[ by | Aug 20, 2019 6:06 pm | 10 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Pedaling My Way Back

Someone said to me once that, in life, you can get used to any­thing. I am not sure that I agree with that state­ment. I would rather think that you can try to get used to most things.

When my body started falling apart due to multiple myeloma, I did try to adapt, but it was a struggle. I don’t think I am used to the new cir­cum­stances, even now four years post diag­nosis, but I certainly feel that I …

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[ by | Jun 27, 2019 7:10 pm | 11 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: It’s Nobody’s Fault

I think that when you are diag­nosed with a serious con­di­tion such as multiple myeloma, it’s probably quite natural to wonder why this has hap­pened.

The medical and popular media are con­stantly suggesting that we follow particular regi­mens in order to keep ourselves healthy and avoid getting cancer. Lots of 'un­healthy' behaviors are thought to in­crease our risk of getting a range of lifestyle-related cancers. But there is no evi­dence that multiple myeloma is a 'preventable' cancer. Nothing that we …

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[ by | Apr 24, 2019 9:11 am | 17 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Nasty Neuropathy

Neuropathy has been a feature of my myeloma “experiences” for many years. Even long before I was diag­nosed, I had neu­rop­athy. It mostly affected my hands and feet, but it could affect other areas of my body as well.

It drove me crazy, and from time to time I tried to find out what was causing it. I had no success at all in my quest. I even once went as far as insisting that I see a neurologist. He …

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[ by | Mar 4, 2019 5:52 pm | 17 Comments ]
Living For Lamingtons: Do I Have To Be Relentlessly Positive To Live With Multiple Myeloma?

There are a few things about having multiple myeloma that I don’t think I will ever get used to.

One of them is the way people react when they find out that, despite treat­ment, multiple myeloma is a cancer that comes back. It is an un­com­fort­able situation for many people (including me and all the Myeloma Beacon readership!), and I have found that it is often very dif­fi­cult for some people to accept.

When I was first diag­nosed …

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