This was a very big summer in our household for family events.

My parents had their sixtieth wedding anniversary, my oldest nephew got married, and my daughter spent a month working in New York.

I was able to travel to and enjoy all of these events.

I mention this only because a year ago, when I started hearing about these upcoming festivities, I was in the hospital for my bone marrow transplant.  It was far from clear that I was going to be around long enough to make it to any of them.  It was also impossible to see past the short term.

It hasn’t been any easy road.  It seems I spent the year jumping from one problem to the next.

With the help of my doctors, we worked through each episode. So, here I am a year later, still around but certainly not out of the woods, as multiple myeloma patients seldom are.

While I was at the wedding this summer, my cousins and nephews began talking about all of the upcoming events for next year: a bar mitzvah in the spring and another wedding next summer.

I was in the moment, enjoying myself, and dutifully making note of the dates, but in the back of my mind I was thinking: ‘I hope I’m around to be there.’

Even more importantly, there will be two big events next year in my immediate family.

When I was diagnosed 7.5 years ago, my son was in 8^th grade and my daughter was in the 4^th grade.  I remember thinking: ‘I want to make it to my son’s high school graduation.’

Now my son is starting his senior year of college and my daughter her senior year of high school.  So, we will have two graduations in May.  Of course, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking: ‘I hope to be around then.’

I was recently talking to a close friend of mine who asked how I was doing.

I explained that I am feeling good but still trying to find a regimen that keeps my disease under control.   Short term, I think I am okay, but long term is a big unknown.

His reply was: “Sometimes the long term is just a series of short terms.”

I think his comment nailed what has been my multiple myeloma experience and likely the experience of many other multiple myeloma patients.

It has been a long and rocky 7.5 years full of multiple relapses, countless drug regimens, two stem cell transplants using my own stem cells, and most recently a donor (allogeneic) stem cell transplant plus more drugs.

From the time of my diagnosis, I have basically managed to string together a series of short terms, which have added up to a long term.  Just not long enough.

Unfortunately, the state of the art of multiple myeloma treatment at the present time, while much improved, is still largely based on a series of short terms.

While response rates are much better with the newer regimens, we are still talking about the dreaded “time to progression,” rather than cure.

Almost all of the results of the new drugs in clinical trials for relapsed/refractory disease sound the same to me: 30 percent response rate and six months time to progression.  There really hasn’t been a game changer yet.

So, a series of short terms is pretty much built into the equation.  It’s clearly not good enough, but it’s what we have to deal with.

My mantra since I was diagnosed (and I’m sure it’s the mantra of many other multiple myeloma patients), has always been: just stay alive until the next drug comes along.

I have able to reset the clock a little bit with the donor transplant.  As I have said before, while I didn’t get the home run result from the transplant, it seems that I have been able to reset things enough to go back and use drugs that were no longer working.  This has bought me a little bit more time.

So, for the time being, it is difficult to see past the short term.

My hope is that a series of short terms will take me to graduation next May and beyond.

Who knows, maybe some combination of a new immune system and that next drug in the pipeline will be the game changer.