Now you know that multiple myeloma is a blood cancer, and I know that multiple myeloma is a blood cancer, but try telling that to my aching bones.

While I’m no stranger to myeloma’s common calling-cards of fatigue from anemia, the bruises and bleeding caused by having too few platelets, blood clots, and various infections such as pneumonia, it’s my skeletal system that seems to vie for center stage attention more often than not.

At my November 2008 stage III …

Fortunately there are some good days when I can almost forget that I have multiple myeloma.  Then it somehow sneaks back into the picture in most curious of ways.

“Is it going to be hot today, Daddy?” eight year old Lizzie asked me.

“Yep, it’s going to be in the upper 90s – the mercury is rising!”

She gave me her patented ‘hunh?’ look to which I have become accustomed.

“Mercury is what, Daddy?”

“Mercury is rising. You know what …

In last month's column, Dreams and Destinations, I recounted the wacky drive I took down to Little Rock, Arkansas, for my first doctor’s checkup after having been off of all multiple myeloma drugs for six months.

Because of a series of inconvenient events, the normal four-hour drive stretched to almost eight hours.

My progress was impeded by a blown tire at 60 mph, two sobriety roadblocks, a couple of small town speed traps, a frustrating crawl behind a wagon …

I have always been a big dreamer.  Literally.

While deep in slumber, I have fought epic battles alongside caped super heroes, explored exotic distant galaxies, pitched a no-hitter in the World Series, and romanced a bevy of leading ladies of the cinema.

I’ll ask my buddies to kindly stop laughing now, please.

Unfortunately, I’ve also conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra sans pants, gotten lost on the way to my bat mitzvah (never mind that I’m neither a girl, nor …

As I entered the waiting room at the Bone Marrow Biopsy clinic and plunked myself down in the only available chair, the animated conversation was soon directed at me.

The woman apparently leading the discussion peered at me over the reading half-glasses perched on her nose, leaned forward, and brusquely uttered:

“Answer this for us. Can a person be ‘happy’ with multiple myeloma? Well?”

The now silent strangers looked my way as the ceiling lights seemed to grow hotter and …

Anyone living with multiple myeloma knows that the emotional hurdles faced can seem as formidable as the physical challenges.

Despite nearly five years of trying to maintain an upbeat outlook on life while sparring with myeloma, I still wrestle with the fact that there are circumstances that I can’t control and mountains that I can’t seem to move.

And just when I hit a low point, something happens to rejuvenate my spirits.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Sophie G., a …

On Easter morning, I woke up way before the roosters clocked in for duty and made my way through the heavily wooded hollow toward the Ozark mountain lake, which sits a long stone’s throw from my home.

I carefully perched myself on a flat outcropping of limestone table rock set high above the quiet waters and gazed at the star-washed sky as it slowly surrendered to the yellow-orange of the approaching dawn.

For me, there is something peaceful, even spiritual, …