During our recent holiday extravaganzas, I was able to spend time with lots of folks who I only see once or twice a year. Along with the frequent “you look good” greetings, I received lots of advice on how to take care of myself. This advice ran the gamut of new cures, the latest supplements I can’t live without, how “some­body’s uncle” changed his life by eating only black beans and brown rice (really!), to simple dietary suggestions.

I have long ago come to grips with the fact that this advice is well meaning. I try hard to avoid getting into an argument over what double-blind testing is all about and why I think it is important. Most people don’t want to hear about science anyway; they mostly just want to help me in their own way.

Unfortunately, I think this sometimes causes me to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. I wonder if some of this advice is worthwhile and my predilection to tune out much of the advice I receive may be causing me to miss something important.

One of my weaknesses – which at the same time is also one of my strengths – is that I can be over­whelm­ingly logical.

Yet, as my wife is fond of pointing out to me, the shortest, most direct way to a destination is not always the best. What about the beautiful flowers along the less direct route? Do we really want to miss the great fruit stands on the longest route?

Left to my own devices, it won’t even occur to me to consider those factors. I will go the quickest, most logical way.

When it comes to the treatment of myeloma, I also can get pretty myopic. I have decided on the path I want to follow, and I stay on this path at all costs.

But I wonder: Is this the right way to go? I am currently at a stage of my cancer where I have no debilitating symptoms of myeloma. I have no lesions in my bones, nor do I have organ failure. However, a very high percentage of my bone marrow is unfortunately affected by myeloma, and I also have a high light chain count. Other than fatigue and symptoms caused by my Revlimid ^[1] (lenalidomide) and steroid treatment, I feel pretty good. I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My current plan is to continue the Revlimid and steroid therapy as long as I respond to it and then get an autologous stem cell transplant when the regimen fails. All pretty logical, by-the-book treatment.

But what am I missing? Is there something we are all missing?

Should I try the gluten-free diet? What about the carb-free diet? How about oxygen saturation treatment in a hyperbaric tank? Getting stung by lots of bees?

Are my free radicals at the right level? Should I be eating only superfoods? Maybe a pure açai berry juice cleanse will help. Is fasting the way to go? Maybe a pure, organic vegan juice enema will make a difference. Acupuncture? Cupping? Chakra adjustment?

This doesn’t even scratch the surface of non-traditional treatments, which include food supplements, non-GMO diets, and Chinese herbs.

I don’t know about you, but I find this all pretty overwhelming. No wonder I have to consciously keep my eyeballs from rolling back into my head every time somebody suggests something new. It’s not that I don’t think most of these things would be good for me in one way or another. I just don’t believe they will cure my myeloma.

But what if they are right? How far out of the box should I be thinking?

A program our family supports is a group called “Tabitha Cambodia.” One of Tabitha’s initiatives is to drill wells so that villages in Cambodia have access to water in order to grow food crops. Wells, though, are sometimes not enough to solve the problem. Tabitha’s director recently wrote that some families don’t have enough land to grow sufficient food to feed themselves.

This problem was going unresolved until one of the organization’s local managers suggested that these families try a non-traditional crop – crickets! It turns out that crickets are a delicacy in Cambodia, and the space under a typical family’s house is perfect for raising them. By thinking outside the box, Tabitha helped a number of families make enough money to provide for themselves, and those families even taught some of their neighbors how to raise crickets.

This was very motivational for me. Maybe I need to think outside of my box.

This can go beyond just my myeloma treatment. My “box” includes the way I approach my work, my family, our family finances, and my hobbies. All of these items affect my health.

What’s interesting is that, for many years before my myeloma diagnosis, I always considered myself a med­i­cal non-traditionalist. I believed in my body’s inherent ability to heal itself, and I eschewed most anti­bi­otics and other “normal” medical treatments.

In fact, in my search for an explanation for my recurring colitis, I found that “normal” treatments were quite ineffective. All that really worked to alleviate my symptoms was to completely stop eating – the epitome of a clean diet.

Once I received my diagnosis of incurable cancer, though, any thoughts of non-traditional treatment went quickly out the window. I needed to live long enough to see my children through to adulthood, and traditional western medicine seemed to have a way to achieve that. My logical mind took over and I decided on the path that made the most sense given what I want to accomplish. I’ve focused on that path ever since.

I also continue to believe I made the right decision.

But what am I missing out on?

As I see it, I don’t have the option of experimenting. I owe it to my family to go the double-blind tested, “nor­mal” way. My chances of living five to ten years seem promising even if I am in a bit of a chemo fog. If I was older or childless, however, I think I might be more inclined to roll the dice and go for a cure without the fog.

What about you? Any chance of some bee stings or hot cups in your treatment future?

As for me, I will continue to try to get past my box - if not in my medical treatment, at least in the path I take to get home from work.

Aloha and Carpe Diem!