It is easy to become self-centered when diagnosed with a serious illness like cancer. That self-centeredness becomes even more intense when the cancer is considered incurable, as is the case with multiple myeloma.

It's easy to give someone a pass in such a situation because it is com­pletely understandable how, when confronted with their own mortality, they would tend to look at things differently.

As I reflect on the four years that I have lived with multiple myeloma, I realize that my concentration on learning about the disease, dealing with the different treatment regimens and their side effects, and generally overcoming the challenges of living with multiple myeloma have made me so self-centered that I have given little thought to how being a multiple myeloma patient has affected my family.

This realization came to me as I considered the situation my sister is currently going through. Her youngest son, just 32 years old, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – a malignancy with a reputation of being extremely aggressive and having a low survival rate. In my daily conversations with my sister, it is obvious that these facts are weighing heavily on her and her family.

While my nephew’s situation is far more serious than mine, I can't escape the fact that I have given scant attention or concern to the impact my multiple myeloma has had on my family. Conversations with my family since this realization have been enlightening and, in some ways, deepen my regret for not making their concerns and worries a priority of mine.

One thing my family members all agreed was difficult for them to deal with after learning of my diagnosis was a fear of the unknown. Like most people, they had never heard of multiple myeloma. They understandably were unnerved that this cancer, unlike most cancers, couldn't be burned away through radiation, destroyed with chemotherapy, or cut out surgically.

Like many, both my son, who was 16 when I was diagnosed, and my daughter, who was 20, associated the fact that multiple myeloma is incurable with it being a terminal condition. My son admitted that such thinking suddenly made those things that he and I did together more meaningful and even stirred a desire in him to do more things together.

My daughter, who was away at college when I was first diagnosed, shared that the situation caused her to re-examine her goals and benchmarks for life, which she probably wouldn't have done had the diagnosis not occurred. I think things were tougher for my daughter because being away from home left so much to the imagination. We weren't interacting personally every day, so she couldn't see that, in reality – at least in the early stages of my disease – the disease wasn't really having much impact on my life.

My wife on the other hand – in keeping with her eternally optimistic nature – refused then and to this day to use the word “terminal” to describe my disease. She also dismisses any notion that the data suggest I will live but 8 to 10 years since my diagnosis four years ago. I believe that her attitude has rubbed off on my son and daughter, as evidenced by the fact that my daughter now uses such terms as our "new normal" to describe the dynamics of our family life.

I have shared my experiences with this disease – from an initial watch-and-wait approach, to induction therapy, an autologous stem cell transplant, and my current maintenance therapy regimen – in previous columns.

It won't be a surprise for anyone familiar with multiple myeloma that everyone in my family agrees that the most challenging times since my diagnosis were my steroid rages on dex days during induction therapy, and the autologous stem cell transplant.

This whole reflective exercise with my family has had its lighter moments. We laughed at their recollections of my rants and wild mood swings while on dexamethasone – how they would all quietly slip out of the room when it got to a certain level, and yet still hear me from different parts of the house continuing my con­versa­tion with myself or the TV if it was on. My son’s emergency trip to Walmart with his girlfriend to purchase extra underwear for me during the early days of my stem cell transplant was something I was completely unaware of. To hear him recount that trip evoked even more laughter.

So what lessons can one learn from my professed shortcomings?

For any newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patient, as understandable and excusable as it may be to become totally self-absorbed in one’s personal situation in battling this disease, remember that having myeloma is a family affair.

While your loved ones may not be experiencing the physical challenges you are going through, they suffer in ways that can’t be seen. Find a way to not only find out how they are suffering through your suffering, but be a caregiver to them in addressing their needs while they care for you.

As a family member of a multiple myeloma sufferer, don’t be afraid to share your anxieties and concerns with them. On those few occasions when my family talked about this disease, I found it therapeutic and also a welcome change to be caring for others rather than being cared for.