I have some wonderful news to share. My last PET scan showed no active myeloma anywhere. None in my existing lesions, and the extramedullary tumor in my groin is gone. No new lesions.

Given that I’ve become a nonsecretor over time, tests on my blood and urine don’t help much in tracking my myeloma. My light chains are in the normal range, whether my myeloma is active or not. Only a PET scan and bone marrow biopsy can help my …

Those of you who have been following my story remember how carefully my wife Pattie and I weighed the pros and cons before deciding I would proceed with a salvage autologous stem cell transplant.

The transplant this summer worked so well that my myeloma specialist strongly recommended that we repeat it this fall.

There was just a touch of measurable multiple myeloma left. Why not stick with a therapy that was working? Hit my myeloma hard while it’s down.

Once …

In my column last month, I shared details of my plan to push the envelope and undergo back-to-back, or tandem, autologous stem cell transplants.

I made a forceful point in that column about the importance of living in the moment; not looking ahead to the point that I lost precious days in the weeks leading up to the second transplant.

For the most part, I was pretty good at living in the moment. For example, I squeezed in a …

Last month I promised an update on how I responded to the salvage au­tol­ogous stem cell transplant I underwent in July. The news is good!

Although some active myeloma remains in the occipital lesion at the base of my skull, and in both hips, all lesions have significantly improved. A half dozen other lesions are clear. And the extramedullary plasmacytoma that was growing in the lymph nodes in my groin? Gone!

I had a 0.2 g/dL M-spike going in and …

Let me start out with a quick update about how I’m doing after my salvage transplant earlier this summer.

As I become more active, I’m experiencing more bone pain. It’s hard to know if the pain is caused by old lesions or newly formed ones. I’ll know more later this week after having some tests done.

I’m feeling much stronger; I’m walking, swimming, and doing intense physical therapy. I lost a lot of muscle mass over the summer, but …

It’s been 37 long, hard days away from home for my salvage transplant. The good news: I’m home early!

I left last week facing a very difficult decision: Should I take my specialist’s advice and move forward with a second, tandem, stem cell transplant?

My doctor felt if the first one didn’t work, well, skip the second transplant. But if the one I just had got most, or all, of my myeloma, crush it with a second transplant.

“Don’t make …

The July 4^th holiday is behind us. I spend it in Iowa City, harvesting stem cells for my upcoming autologous stem cell transplant.

To review, after my fourth relapse – and a number of short-lived therapy options that would only work for months, not years – I made the difficult decision to try a salvage auto transplant, but only because it was going to be modified, as I described in my April column. I had a failed transplant four …