Those of you who have been following my story remember how carefully my wife Pattie and I weighed the pros and cons before deciding I would proceed with a salvage autologous stem cell transplant.

The transplant this summer worked so well that my myeloma specialist strongly recommended that we repeat it this fall.

There was just a touch of measurable multiple myeloma left. Why not stick with a therapy that was working? Hit my myeloma hard while it’s down.

Once again, we agreed with his logic. Just as I began to recover from the first one, I headed back to complete the tandem transplant.

God knows it hasn’t been easy. In the last six months I’ve twice endured exposure to four different types of myeloma therapy, leaving me without a working bone marrow for weeks at a time. Nausea, diarrhea, neu­tro­penia, anemia; a month or more away from home this summer and again in the fall. Auto transplants may be relatively safe, but I can’t imagine many things more unpleasant to live through.

Soon after my first transplant this summer, I developed a painful stomach infection that magnified the chal­lenges of recovery. Earlier this month, I developed a severe case of an infamous intestinal bacteria known as Clostridium difficile, more commonly called C. diff. It left me dehydrated and running a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius).

Barely able to stand, I staggered to the emergency room at the hospital where I was supposed to start a series of post-transplant tests that morning.

I was immediately admitted and rushed up to the intensive care unit (ICU). My resting heart rate: an alarming 150 beats a minute!

My diarrhea was brutal and nonstop. When I could, I slept – until the next time I scrambled to the commode.

A few days later I was transferred to the bone marrow transplant unit. As they wheeled me down the hall, I was emotionally crushed. I felt like I was returning to the scene of a crime.

Don’t get me wrong. The staff there is amazing. But great staff or not, nothing can ease the unpleasant memories of recovering from not one but two stem cell transplants. I had hoped I was done with all of that.

There is a powerful antibiotic often used to fight back C. diff called vancomycin. With the help of an ongoing infusion of IV fluids, electrolytes, and the vancomycin, I began to feel better as the days went on.

Still, I was exhausted. After all, it hadn’t been long since millions of my stem cells had been given back to me in late October. And I still needed to undergo a brain MRI and PET scan to help my doctor know how well the second stem cell transplant had worked.

The news was good. My brain MRI showed that the lesion at the base of my skull was myeloma free and shrinking. My M-spike had dropped to zero, with only “a faint monoclonal protein present in the gamma region that is too faint to quantify.”

My doctor assured me even that would be gone in a matter of weeks. But what did the latest PET scan show?

With a big smile on his face, my doctor pronounced me “Myeloma free!”

It was a Christmas miracle! Before the ordeal began, one specialist had given me “a year and maybe a few months” to live.

In the last six months I had lost my hair twice, endured ongoing nausea, diarrhea, a severe stomach infection, and this latest GI infection, which landed me in the ICU.

I had spent ten weeks away from home and lost 10 precious pounds I couldn’t spare. Most of the muscle in my shoulders, back, arms, legs is gone. In other words, I would need to start building my body up again from scratch.

There aren’t any guarantees for how long my myeloma will stay away. Knowing that, my doctor has set up an aggressive, three-drug consolidation therapy program set to start after the first of the year.

But none of that matters. All the pain, discomfort, and time away is already a fading memory. Our gamble paid off: I’m home and I’m myeloma free.

Just in time for Christmas.

Feel good and keep smiling!