I guess I am posting pretty much "late" in the game. I am a 59-year-old male who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in December 2016. I found out I had it when I went to get a cortisone shot in my right shoulder. My doctor took an x-ray of my right arm and found 25% of my humorous missing.
In two weeks I was in surgery getting a surgical nail implanted into the humorous to strengthen it. Still didn't know a lot about multiple myeloma at that time. Just what I read on the Internet, and that in itself was way too confusing. About the same time I was sent to my oncologist, a myeloma specialist. After talking to him and the more I learned about multiple myeloma, the fear subsided quite a bit.
In May of 2017 I went in for my autologous stem cell transplant. As you all know, it wasn't pleasant, but in the end it knocked the multiple myeloma completely down. I still see my oncologist every two months for discussions and blood tests.
I guess I came out of this "pretty well". Besides my right humorous, there were a couple of holes in my discs in my mid back. As of the transplant, I have been multiple myeloma 'free". I take Revlimid 10 mg 21 days out of a month and get a Zometa IV every two months. That is all my treatment I get.
I have to say, though, that since the transplant my body has never been the same. I have had severe GI problems and memory loss. For the GI problem, my doc took me off of Revlimid late last year for a month and the GI problems continued. So it wasn't the Revlimid. The GI doc could not really find anything, but now it seems to be getting better. Personally, I think it is stress.
I was out of work from December 2016 to October 2017 and now I am back with no restrictions. All In all I feel blessed, and my physical problems seem to be fading into the past. I was planning to retire when I turned 62, but now because of the multiple myeloma, I hope to retire when I am 60. Just want to spend more time with family and enjoying life.
My oncologist has told me the multiple myeloma will eventually come back to say hi, and I will have to go through the same thing again. But just like any oncologist, he doesn't know when it will happen. I guess that is the hardest part of having multiple myeloma.
But after going through all of this visiting the cancer center once a week in the beginning and seeing other cancer patients, I realized just how lucky I was and am. It hurt so much to see patients with pancreatic, brain, and other terrible cancers. I made a lot of friends during those visits, and now some of them have passed on.
Thank you all for taking time to read my post. I did not go through the "5 Steps" like denial and anger. I went immediately to accepting my diagnosis and that helped me a lot. You guys take care and God Bless you all..
Sincerely,
Randy
