Five or six years ago, I noticed that my wife was consistently biking a lot faster than I was when we took bike rides on the weekends or when I met her on her way home from work. 

So, as a 60^th birthday present to myself, I bought a very lightweight bike constructed out of space-age material in the hope that I could keep up.

Alas, the flashy new bike didn’t help: my wife continued to outpace me. She is a tiny woman, but she also is two years younger than I am, and she did bike several days a week the four miles each way to and from her job at one of the local university hospitals.  

So there was no real cause for dismay, and we weren’t racing.   

After I had a couple of very serious chest colds, I perhaps should have suspected that it wasn’t just my wife’s good genes that made her seem so fast.  But the colds resolved (after a lot of coughing and muttering that “I must have broken a rib after that coughing attack”).  

We continued to take bike trips -- day trips on the weekend, and lengthier tours in the summer led by professionals with a back-up van. 

Two years ago, in January 2010, another vicious cold appeared. 

After a week, it had gotten much worse. 

My doctor took a quick glance at me and a quick listen to my chest.   He drew some blood but told me even before he sent it to the lab that I should be prepared to check in to the hospital.  I could wait for the actual results but he had no doubts. 

He called the next morning and insisted I be admitted.  

Within a day of admission -- not counting the 14 hours I spent on a gurney in the ER waiting for a bed to open -- I heard the now familiar words.

Multiple myeloma.

These words weren’t entirely foreign to me.  A close friend had been diagnosed with the disease less than a year earlier.  But my friend had responded well to whatever medicines he was taking, and I hadn’t done any research on this arcane disease.  

The third day in the hospital, the hematologist came by and he gave me my introductory lesson on multiple myeloma.  The blood marrow tests confirmed the diagnosis, with a “good” prognosis due to my particular chromosomal pattern.  

But regardless of the prognosis, as many people have noted, everything changes when you get the diagnosis.       

After a couple of more days in the hospital with IV antibiotics, full body x-ray scans (I had indeed broken some ribs during those coughing attacks), ultrasounds, pounding on my chest, and heavy coughing to loosen the stuff coating my lungs, I was discharged. 

I took another week off from work to get my strength back.  And my second formal education began. 

Two years and lots of Internet reading later, I have a whole new vocabulary.  Infusions (a euphemism if I ever heard one), M-spikes, bone marrow, plasma cells, Revlimid, Velcade, Zometa, dexamethasone, prednisone, steroid therapy, stem cell collection, autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplants, peripheral neuropathy, mortality, morbidity, progression-free survival, necrosis…. 

This was the equivalent of a full academic course!  And it’s been accompanied by physical and emotional trials, with plenty of ups and downs, and plenty more to come. 

While I can still bike, I found after six months of chemotherapy that I could no longer continue with my job and deal with the schedule and side effects of treatments.  

My myeloma may be in “very good partial remission,” and the physical effects of the chemotherapy (on most days) are bearable. 

However, the emotional and psychological effects, particularly of the steroids, were far too strong to allow me to continue to work.   And they also were far more insidious and dangerous than what was described by the medical team or on the Internet. 

“Roid rage” is a hidden danger you won’t find in the fine print on the dexamethasone package.  In my career and at home, I have been pretty good at avoiding conflicts, and I was thought pretty effective at settling legal disputes.  But steroids are powerful drugs and have had a powerful impact. 

Learning to calm down and not be overly aggressive has been one of my hardest tasks.  And, two years into this treatment, I can’t say that I have been completely successful. 

I’ll describe a few of my “adventures” in one of my later articles. 

I’ve tried to be prepared with humorous responses to the minor confrontations that seem to appear pretty regularly in a crowded city. 

It’s a much safer and healthier response than being aggressive or confrontational.