It is interesting to note the clichés that have become common in our lexicon. Some of those clichés are useful for describing life with multiple myeloma. However, there are clichés that, because I have multiple myeloma, I am not so fond of.

My favorite cliché, which appeared about five years ago, is "It is what it is." A colleague of mine, who heard me use the saying frequently, gave me a plaque with the phrase engraved on it. I kept the plaque on my desk. It helped remind me that in my job as school district super­intendent, there were things that, despite my best effort and intentions, just couldn't be ex­plained, fixed, or controlled.

"It is what it is" also accurately describes my feelings on living with multiple myeloma. I can't explain (and I have no desire to explain) what causes the disease and why I was one of the very few who become afflicted with it. The phrase certainly reflects the fact that the disease is incurable, despite all the money, science, and technology devoted to finding a cure. It also accurately describes how I had no gastro­intestinal issues during my induction therapy, yet such issues now control my daily life while I am on maintenance therapy with the same drug I had during induction, but at a greatly reduced dose.

Living by this cliché doesn't mean that I have a fatalistic outlook on life – that I have yielded control to things beyond my control. Rather, it's a simple acceptance of things unexplainable and uncontrollable, and a desire to move beyond the uncontrollable and unexplainable to things that are important, can be explained, and can be controlled. After all, our days are numbered. I just don't see the sense in wasting what time we have left on the unexplainable and uncontrollable.

While I can relate to "It is what it is," there is one cliché that stirs my blood in a different way. It's the phrase, "Just livin' the dream." I have told my 20-year-old son that if he ever again responds "Just livin' the dream" when I ask him how he is doing, I will write him out of my will.

Why does this cliché evoke such a visceral response from me? Because most people who respond to the question of how they are doing with "Just livin' the dream" don't mean it. I sense that it is a sarcastic, cynical response – an exclamation that the person's life is anything but a dream, that it's boring, drab, and inconsequential. I just don’t have much sympathy or patience anymore for people who have such an attitude.

This sense I had about the meaning of most of these responses was confirmed one morning at work.

Every time I asked Peter (not his real name) how he was doing, he responded "Just livin' the dream." I became so annoyed at the same response every day as we passed each other that I vowed one day that I would ask him what was so dreamlike about his life.

The next day as Peter approached me on his way to his classroom, I asked him how he was doing. As expected, he flippantly replied, "You know, just livin' the dream."

Before he could quickly move away, I gently grabbed him by the arm and asked: "So Peter, what dream are you living? What is so dreamlike about your life?"

He gave me a startled look, stuttered "Uh, uh, you know." I said, "No, I don't know, tell me, if you're living the dream, I want to be able to tap into that."

He gave me another startled look and with a "It's just a saying" reply, quickly moved on down the hall.

As myeloma patients, life is too short for us to be sarcastic and cynical in our comments about our current condition. What we say, and more importantly, what we mean with the words we utter, influences how others view us. It also shapes our own inner conscious. I don't want to feed the inner thinking that life is a nightmare – as excusable as that may be as a multiple myeloma sufferer.

As Maureen Nuckols so accurately showed in her latest column ^[1] here at The Beacon, one can still live their dreams despite multiple myeloma. Doing so may be more challenging, but it is still very much "livin' the dream." We may have less time to chase those dreams, we may have to alter some of the dreams, but unless the disease is at its most serious, final stage, there is little we can't do to lead a dream life.

I never told anyone before being diagnosed that I was "Livin the dream," so I certainly won't do so now. But like so many other myeloma patients, I'm going to live the dream until this disease makes it physically impossible to do so.