One of my responsibilities as a school superintendent is to check the roads during inclement weather to determine whether school should be delayed or closed.

During a recent early-morning road check through thick, patchy fog, I couldn't help but think that making decisions about delaying or closing school due to fog is similar to living a life with multiple myeloma.

The arrival of fog is often completely unexpected and, unlike with snow and ice storms, I rarely receive a weather warning about approaching fog.

Similarly, many of us had never heard of myeloma until we received the awful diagnosis. More often than not, we were diagnosed with the disease after being wrongly diagnosed and treated for another illness.

Because foggy mornings are so unpredictable in our area from the end of August to the end of September, I am on edge in the mornings, rising at 4:00 a.m. every day so that I am not surprised later to find dense fog covering the district.

Being on edge is a common state of mind when living with multiple myeloma. The days leading up to a three-month check-up are agonizing. Worse yet are the days after that check-up, when you are waiting for the lab results to be released.

We turn into myeloma hypochondriacs as every backache or sore limb makes us wonder if new bone lesions are developing. A slow recovery from the common cold leads us to think that our immune system has been completely compromised by myeloma.

In the part of north central Ohio where I live, not only are foggy conditions unexpected, but they also are unpredictable once they arrive. The fog comes and goes without any explanation. Conditions appear to be improving, lulling me into a sense of complacency that the fog is lifting. However, in a matter of minutes, the fog can be thicker than it has been all morning. Conventional wisdom says that the rising sun burns away the fog. This is not always so, as the fog often thickens at sunrise.

Living with myeloma causes us to expect the unpredictable. Months, and many times years, of positive results are shattered by a rise in the M-spike. Conventional wisdom would suggest that months of induction therapy followed by a stem cell transplant would put the disease into permanent remission. We all know that is not the case.

Making the decision to delay or close school is solely my decision as superintendent. I made the mistake early in my career as a superintendent to involve others in this process. Their idea of what constituted dangerous road conditions did not match mine, and after several questionable decisions were made, I relieved them of their responsibility. I now make the call alone. After all, it will be my name on the lawsuit if anyone gets injured due to not delaying or closing school.

It is the same with the multitude of decisions we have to make with the treatment of myeloma. Doctors recommend treatments. Family and friends weigh in with their opinions. More opinions are gathered from various sources that show a wide variety of opinions and experiences on the various treatments. But, when all is said and done, the final decision is ours, or it should be, because we assume all of the risks and, hopefully, all of the benefits of the treatments.

Fog can be deadly, as our school district found out more than 20 years ago when foggy conditions led to a traffic fatality involving a school bus. Indecision, or a wrong decision, caused by the unpredictability of fog played a major part in this tragedy.

Regardless of what term we use to describe multiple myeloma – incurable, terminal, or treatable – the cold reality is that multiple myeloma is deadly, and indecision makes it even more so. I learned recently from a friend of mine that his wife, who had multiple myeloma, chose to ignore the disease and died in a few short years, even though she was diagnosed at a relatively young age (in her mid-30s). Indecision, or a wrong decision, hastened her death.

Fog can cloud one's judgment. It is easy to become completely disoriented while driving in fog. More than once, I have become completely lost on roads that I travel every day while checking roads in dense fog.

As I look back at my condition prior to the stem cell transplant, "cloudy" and "disoriented" are two adjectives that best described my condition.

It seems that, once fog clears, the sun appears to shine brighter than normal. I am sure it’s due to the stark contrast to the dreariness associated with the earlier overhanging fog. For me as superintendent, the relief that the dangerous road conditions have passed may also play an important role in why I am always struck by the brightness of the sunshine once the fog has cleared.

Effective treatments provide us myeloma patients with our sunny days, regardless of the kind of remission we achieve. Personally, I am currently enjoying bright, sunny days as I continue to experience pain-free and fatigue-free days since my stem cell transplant in mid-June.

I know that, despite how sunny things are for me right now, it is very likely that foggy days lie ahead. Since that currently is the fate for most of us with this disease, we need to make the most of our sunny days.

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz used the acronym WIN ("What's Important Now") to guide his players and assistant coaches. By determining and focusing on "What's Important Now," Holtz would say, clarity and purpose are established during times of pressure and challenge.

Nothing is more challenging or pressing than the quality of life and/or life and death decisions we make while living with multiple myeloma.

Since hearing Coach Holtz speak more than a month ago, I have tried to follow his advice.

Determining “What’s Important Now” has certainly made the current sunny days brighter and life much simpler for me.

I hope that I can remember Coach Holtz’s advice when the inevitable relapse occurs.