Fellow myeloma patients: When do you let new friends, casual acquaintances, or even strangers know that you have cancer?

When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2005, I immediately sent out a long e-mail to all of my friends and family. Then I started a blog and told everyone to visit it for regular updates about my health. My cancer was in no way a secret.

Nearly eight years later, my cancer is still not a secret. It’s just more difficult to tell people I have it.

Sometimes, I’m not sure if I should tell people; other times, I just don’t feel like it. I’ve met lots of new people since my Big Announcement, and many people I see and talk to regularly have absolutely no idea I’m a cancer patient. Since I've never been visibly sick, it's pretty easy for me to blend into society as a completely healthy person.

As the years have gone by, my diagnosis seems like an awkward thing to bring up to people I’ve just met. When do you work that into a conversation?

“Hi! Nice to meet you! Our kids go to the same school! I have cancer!”

That doesn’t really work.

Then again, if you see someone every day for a couple of years and you don’t let them in on The Cancer, is that lying? Is it covering up the truth? I’m not sure.

It seems like it would be easier if I were 30 or 40 years older and most people in my peer group had some kind of medical issue to discuss:

“Do you want to hear about my gall bladder?”

“Oh, don’t even get me started about my gout!”

Hey, I’m not making fun of older people. I have parents who are in their 60s. I’ve had grandparents. I’ve heard their conversations. I know how it goes.

People in their 30s don’t have these kinds of health-centered conversations. We just don’t. We talk about kids, husbands, jobs. Besides, when you’re in your 30s and you’re the only mom at the playgroup who has a fatal disease, you tend to keep it to yourself so you don’t bring everybody down.

I’m sure the “I have cancer” conversation is always a huge bummer no matter what kind of cancer you have, but it always seems to me that the “I have myeloma” conversation must be extra difficult.

For one thing, most people have never heard of multiple myeloma, so I always need to explain what it is. Always. Once I went to the local urgent care with a stomach virus, and I not only had to explain myeloma to the nurse, I had to tell him how to spell it.

After explaining myeloma, I then have to find a way to be calm, casual, and breezy as I drop the Big Bomb: No, I’m not in remission.

People get really freaked out when you tell them you’re not in remission. In my pre-cancer days, I probably would have freaked out, too.

“That woman has been walking around for almost eight years not in remission? How is that even possible? Do you think she’ll explode?”

After I drop the bomb, I have to wait for the dust to settle to see how people will react. I'm always scared of being viewed as “the Cancer Girl.” The majority of people don’t treat me this way, but I never know when the cancer label is going to sneak up on me.

I was once at a gathering where people I hadn't seen in a while kept coming up to me, cocking their heads sympathetically, and saying things like, “Oh, how are you? Are you okay?” I was confused at first, and then I remembered. Oh, yeah. The cancer.

There are times when I have the opportunity to tell people, and I just don’t. I get tired of explaining it, and I just want to be normal.

For example, I joined a gym a few years ago. As the front-desk lady was filling out all of my paperwork, she said, “You're healthy, right? You're not on any meds?”

I paused, wondering how I was going to phrase everything without making it sound like I’d collapse and die at the gym. I figured I couldn’t just blurt out, “I’m being treated for cancer!” I started working out the explanation in my head, as usual:

"Um, yeah, well, okay, see, I have this rare form of blood cancer. And usually older people get it. But I've never had any symptoms, and my form of it is really slow moving, so I'm on a low dose of medication, and it’s just in pill form, not, you know, ‘make-you-go-bald’ chemo or anything. And, no, I'm not in remission, but that is totally okay. Ha ha! See how casual I am?”

Just as I was getting ready to launch into my I'm-not-going-to-die explanation, I noticed that the front-desk lady had already written “HEALTHY” in giant letters across the bottom of the form. Well, gee. How sad would it be to watch her scribble out “HEALTHY” and replace it with, “Rare form of old-person cancer, but claims she is not going to die, despite the fact that she's not even in remission”?

“Yeah,” I said, “I'm healthy.”

Was that wrong and irresponsible? Oh, probably. I could get conked on the head with a barbell and need medical attention at the gym.

But honestly, I needed a break from the “cancer patient” label, and I think all of us cancer patients need that every now and then.