I love it when a well-laid plan comes together and I can thumb my nose at that dastardly myeloma, yet again!

My wife, a busy teacher, our two energetic school-aged daughters, and I were excitedly planning our mid-March Spring Break vacation.

At the same time, I had been trying to schedule my next quarterly multiple myeloma check-up, but because of other obligations and a full patient load at the treatment center, the only time available to squeeze me in was, you guessed it, during the girls’ Spring Break. Bummer!

Karen and the kids have sacrificed so much during the last couple of years of my struggle with multiple myeloma. Life has been anything but normal for them.

For this year’s Spring Break, I encouraged them to grab some well deserved mother-daughter-sister bonding time at some sun-drenched beach, dangle their tootsies in the water, eat some delicious food, enjoy an umbrella-adorned fruit punch drink or two, and send me some pictures of their hijinks.

Although I’m not feeling anywhere close to the vim and vigor of my pre-myeloma days, I assured the girls that I would be just fine driving the nearly two hundred miles to the check-up. Hillary, my British-voiced GPS auto-pilot par excellence, would get me to where I needed to be, no problem.

Yes dear, I will make it to all of the appointments on time and be polite and smile my way through the long days of testing, poking, prodding, and tissue extractions. I won’t starve, I will take my medicine, and I will get plenty of rest. I promise to bathe every day, brush my teeth, and not talk to strangers.

Now it wasn’t really that bad, but my wife and kids are very protective of me. I guess they sort of love me. Or they think that I’m a dolt.

Before I could insist that they go paint some town red without me, my teenager said, ”Daddy, we’ve decided to spend Spring Break…with you… in Little Rock!”

Spring Break in Little Rock? Is that legal? It is a nice town. Friendly people. Pleasant weather. Beautiful Crepe Myrtle and pear trees blooming in the Spring. Well, okay! Let’s do it!

My good friend and songwriter Pat McManus co-wrote Reba McEntire’s #1 hit song ‘Little Rock.’ When the girls shouted ‘In Little Rock!’, it was as if Pat, Reba, and the boys had kicked off the tune right there in my family room. We bopped around the room singing the catchy ‘Little Rock’ motif over and over again! It doesn’t take much to amuse us.

Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas with a population of nearly 200,000 people, is the home of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (MIRT).

I was treated at UAMS from December 2008 through October 2009. I had lots of chemo, two stem cell transplants, vertebral surgeries, and more. I am currently in remission and well into my second year of weekly maintenance chemotherapy at my local infusion center in southwestern Missouri. I return to MIRT every four months for testing and evaluation. And courtesy of UPS, my blood and urine returns to Little Rock every month or so.

So off to picturesque Arkansas for Spring Break we went! Now the girls, my wife, and I had slightly different agendas for this trip:

My Daughters’ Plans

Their agenda was to shop, eat, swim in the hotel’s heated indoor pool, power shop, visit the zoo, see a family movie, play some Wii, text their friends, annoy their sister, shop some more, stay up late, and sleep in late. And that was just the first day.

My Plan

My goal was to have a full body MRI, a full body DWIBS (diffusion weighted whole body imaging with background signal suppression—say that five times fast—an imaging test that allows for a quick visualization of potential lesions throughout the body), give yet another half dozen vials of blood, drop off the bright orange urine container that I’d been lugging around for 24 hours, have a painless bone biopsy and bone marrow aspiration, have a bone densitometry test, and enjoy the spiked Crystal Light prior to my PET scan.

I would also meet with a Data Manager to turn in my previous four month’s Revlimid (lenalidomide) / dexamethasone (Decadron) diaries, as required by the FDA, and get my next four months worth of diaries. A Registered Nurse would meet with me to discuss my medications, any prescriptions I might need, and any other concerns. A Scheduler would set up my appointments for my next MIRT visit in July. And most importantly, I would meet with my physician, Dr. Bijay Nair, to discuss test results, answer my questions, have him tell me I needed to lose a few pounds, and to set the next phase of treatment.

My Wife’s Plan

To keep us out of jail, on budget, and clean. Okay, okay, she’s right there with me for my goals, too.

Some Of The Visit’s Highlights

My wife and I joined twenty or so myeloma patients and their caregivers for dinner and a presentation by MIRT’s Founder and Director, Dr. Bart Barlogie, and one of the MIRT staff physicians, Dr. Saad Usmani. Topics included advances in current myeloma treatment, new novel agents in the myeloma pipeline, clinical trials, and other issues of interest.

While I rested after a day of rigorous testing, my wife and kids enjoyed a delightful return visit to the Little Rock Zoo. As the girls were stealing glances at the giraffes, monkeys, and elephants, some weasel (I really wanted to write jackass) was breaking into our van in the parking lot stealing whatever he could find. If he is caught, I recommend a bone biopsy and full marrow aspiration as punishment.

We met with some dear friends for dinner at the Purple Cow, home of the Purple Milkshake. Jane, a local college professor, travelled with us in 1998 to China where she adopted her daughter and we adopted our first daughter. The girls, crib mates, hadn’t seen each other in a few years, and we had a wonderful time catching up.

We saw a fun movie together, ate at several restaurants that we don’t have in our two stoplight town, and we laughed a lot. We had a blast in each other’s company.

If this trip sounds like normal family stuff – that’s sort of the idea. I may be the one positioned at the pointy end of the needle, but multiple myeloma is, indeed, a family diagnosis. It hasn’t made life easy for any of us, but we have discovered that as we carom through the ups and downs and the zigs and zags of our hectic lives, it is vitally important for us to make an intentional effort to stay connected to each other.

It’s important for us to feel like a normal family as often as possible. That’s how we are going to get through this myeloma adventure. And that’s exactly what my wife and daughters were trying to show me.

I hope that you enjoy a healthy, happy spring out there in Myelomaville!

Sean