Everything in life is rel­a­tive to that which we have ex­peri­enced. If all I knew was that a wood sliver hurts when I get one in my finger, then hav­ing a wood sliver would be a pretty im­por­tant issue. Just ask a three-year old with a wood sliver and lim­ited pain ex­peri­ences. No surprise there.

What I have found incredible, how­ever, is the 100 per­cent validity of the “everything being rel­a­tive” state­ment when confronted with can­cer on a personal level. Remember the …

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 …

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 …

When trying to encapsulate my life ex­peri­ences and paths traveled, there are two very distinct roads taken. There was the path taken with ex­peri­ences before “the cancer,” and then, of course, there is the cur­rent path of living with “the cancer” that I am on now.

While recognizing that there were events before diag­nosis that were mem­o­ra­ble – wedding, birth of chil­dren, death of a parent – generally speak­ing, my life before mul­ti­ple myeloma was pretty routine. My old life.

My new life …

Sometimes you can teach old dogs new tricks, and other times those old dogs just need to remember the tricks they already know.

I have been living with mul­ti­ple myeloma for over five years, and trust me when I say that I am very grateful for this time. My gratefulness for life is hard to put into words. I love getting up in the morn­ing and realizing that I am looking down at the green grass. That is tre­men­dous and never …

I must be honest with you, I think about dying a lot. Certainly not all of the time, but it is a big part of my daily routine and has been since I was diag­nosed. And that is some­thing that is new to my life.

Much of my life after diag­nosis has been about the same as before diag­nosis. I still work and put in time at the office. I still play golf and try to exercise at least four to five …

My wife is a saint.

No, she did not coerce me into writing that. As a matter of fact, she does not even know what I am going to write about in a column until I show her the final draft right before I send it out. (Notice that I did make mention of any col­lab­o­rative effort re­gard­ing the writing of my column. Why? Well, it’s a matter of ex­peri­ence and maybe marriage preservation. But I digress.)

I write that …