I struggled mightily with my column this month. I started, stopped, started again, and finally gave up on a half-finished story that seemed relevant at the begin­ning, but eventually got mired in minutiae that my heart just wasn’t into.

What struck me was that the things that were important a few weeks ago when I started to write seemed exceptionally trivial just a short time later.

What changed?

My perspective.

You see, during this period I was touched by the situations some of our fellow patients are in and the real­i­za­tion how much worse off they are than me. During this period, I also paid a visit to my aging and ailing parents, who are also in what I perceive to be a much more difficult situ­a­tion than myself.

I know, I know. You are thinking, “Here comes the diatribe about how there is always somebody worse off than yourself.” But that’s not it exactly.

I find myself constantly pulled in two directions: the self-pity for my own (currently) incurable disease, and the suffering of others, many of whom are reading this right now, who are far worse off than me.

On the one hand, here I sit battling terminal cancer at the relatively young age of 52 years with two teen-aged children to raise. I have had this cursed disease for two and a half years now, I have been on chemotherapy for about 18 months, and sometimes I just don’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning. The medicine makes me tired, grumpy, and confused. It gives me diarrhea and leaves me feeling like a day-old dish cloth. The disease causes me fatigue and regular bouts of colitis.

I am constantly getting new aches and pains from I don’t know what, and my vision is rapidly getting worse. I constantly have to monitor my various blood levels. I have to travel to visit my oncologist at least once a month. On top of all these daily nuisances, I don’t know when I am going to get worse or how much longer I will even be on this earth.

And worst of all, I can’t even drink beer while I take this medicine! Poor me!

The obvious other side of the coin is that many of our fellow patients would kill for my list of complaints. Lots of you are seriously hurting, battling daily doses of chemotherapy that are causing neuropathy, nausea, and severe blood deficiencies. For those of you who have been diagnosed long ago, I’m sure your list of mal­a­dies is varied and long.

My own parents are suffering the challenges of my father’s 47-year battle with multiple sclerosis, my moth­er’s debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, and the general effects of being in their 70’s. I also see my mother’s struggle to be a caregiver to my dad.

The suffering of others make my problems seem pretty trivial.

I want to give advice, especially to the newly diagnosed patients out there, but do I really have the right to do so? How can I provide any insight to those of you who are worse off than myself? How can any of us do that?

You see, we can always find others who are both better off and worse off than ourselves. It’s always been that way, and it always will be. However, insight does not flow in only one direction, from those who are better off to those who are worse off. We all have something to offer each other.

For example, I do not know the best way to manage the pain and discomfort of neuropathy. I haven’t exper­i­enced it, and I have no right to offer advice on how to relieve it. Same goes for my father’s bed sores and my mother’s crippling arthritis.

What I can offer, though, is the perspective (in my case, hope and positive outlook) that I have gained through my own ex­per­i­ence. While this may not be a concrete solution to a concrete problem, it may open the mind a crack for some folks to see a possibility that may make their individual problem better.

My experience with myeloma has changed me significantly, as I am sure yours, or the myeloma of your loved one, has changed you.

It has caused me to become vigilant in seeking out the best of each of my days. It has required me to be­come dramatically more patient with situations that I cannot control. I have been given the oppor­tun­ity to re-order my values so that the things I truly find valuable are put first. It has allowed me to find out what real pain is about (think needle stick versus bone marrow biopsy versus deep bone pain). It has given me the oppor­tun­i­ty to gain just a smidgen of understanding into the pain and suffering of others.

These perspectives are quite different, or exceptionally enhanced, compared to the ones I held for the first 49 years of my pre-myeloma life.

My hope during this holiday season is that you are able to find the ways myeloma has changed your life for the better. That’s not to say that we are happy to have myeloma, but, instead, that not all of it is negative.

Which of your perspectives have changed? Those of us looking for a bright spot in our day would love to hear about it.

As for me, I will try to maintain a proper perspective.

Mele Kalikimaka and Carpe Diem!