My husband and I recently took a road trip to Golden and Revelstoke in British Columbia. We hiked and went sightseeing among the mountains and lakes.  It was truly beautiful there.

While driving down one country road, we passed a tractor that was mowing the tall grasses along the shoulder. Seeing that triggered my memory, since mowing is ‘low tech’ compared to other ways of clearing vegetation that I have noticed in the past. When I was young, I saw railway right-of-ways and the area under power lines being defoliated by herbicides.

The issue of using herbicides to clear around public roads and utilities was fresh in my mind since David Willson mentioned in his recent article ^[1] for the Myeloma Beacon that the cause of his disease is presumed to be his exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange and other dioxins during his tour of duty in Vietnam between 1966 and 1967.

On looking up more about Agent Orange on Wikipedia, I read that this chemical was also tested in Canada at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick between 1966 and 1967. Agent Orange was also used in British Columbia in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in order to clear brush near highways and under power transmission lines. According to Wikipedia, Agent Orange was used under the name “Type B Weed and Brush Killer” for that purpose in Canada, though.

I was quite startled to read about the use of Agent Orange in Canada because when I was a teenager we lived in a small community on the west coast. Across the street from our house were railway tracks. That railway right-of-way was cleared occasionally by chemicals. Could I have been in contact with Agent Orange at age 15 or 16?

I learned that I must have had myeloma for a long time because of the large number of bone lesions I had when I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma. However, since I had a high level of monoclonal protein in the blood, 50 percent plasma cell involvement in the marrow, and also several fractured vertebrae indicating extensive bone damage when I was diagnosed, I can’t know when this whole health problem got started for me.

In the topsy turvy world of myeloma, it can sometimes be better to have had myeloma for a long time. This can indicate that one’s variety of the disease is slow growing, or ‘indolent,’ as my transplant doctor explained. Of course, the word ‘indolent’ is not one that normally one would want to have applied to oneself, but in this case it is definitely okay.

Besides the possibility of being caught up in chemical spraying, I worked as a server in many smoke-filled restaurant rooms in my younger years. I paid my way through university that way, along with jobs in the hospitality industry.

Upon graduation with a bachelor of science in microbiology, I started working as a lab technician in a microbiology research lab. I handled chemicals, including organic solvents, as part of my job.

After that, I worked as a chemistry and biology teacher. I had a whole cupboard of toxic chemicals to look after. I was not deliberately ‘poisoning’ myself, but I probably was exposed to harmful chemicals through the skin and by breathing in fumes that were harmful.

One can’t help but wrack one’s brain trying to determine what got the whole unfortunate condition of myeloma started. A recent discussion ^[2] in the Beacon forums shows that I’m not the only one thinking about this topic.

If we can determine the causes of cancer, then we can work on prevention in our society, so that others don’t get exposed to carcinogens, and so that those of us with cancer do not continue to expose our weakened systems to carcinogens.

Studies have shown a rapid increase in the rate of myeloma over the past few decades. This increase could well be linked to environmental factors. Wouldn’t it be great to see that rate decrease due to greater awareness and avoidance of the triggers of this cancer?

Do you have some thoughts on how environmental factors may have contributed to your myeloma?

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The quotation for this month is from Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964), an American biologist and writer, well known for her environmental book ‘Silent Spring’ (1962), who wrote "A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods."