I’m not normally a person for rules, but all that changed in June 2015 when I found myself lying in a hospital bed in Singapore. At age 57, I had just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and I was in a bit of a sorry state, to put it mildly.

It is hard to recall all the things that seemed to be wrong with me at the time – fever, infections, broken bones, severe backache, a hip that would no longer support my body, pleural effusion, low blood oxygen levels, anemia, and high blood calcium levels, to name a few.

It had taken months to reach this point and, in some ways, there was a sense of relief to finally know what was wrong with me. My husband Graham and I listened carefully when the doctor shared the diagnosis and the initial treatment plan with us.

The doctor wanted to hit the multiple myeloma as hard and as fast as possible, which would hopefully reduce the massive tumor load. However, the infections had to subside before treatment could start.

We knew we had a battle ahead of us.

In the weeks that followed, Graham quickly became knowledgeable about multiple myeloma and the treat­ments that were available. He was also in charge of all the research and all the questions for the medical team.

I was just struggling with my body and trying to keep my head together. I was in charge of the day-to-day task of trying to get well. Maybe this sounds crazy, but somehow I didn’t even have the strength to do any Internet searches. I was too frightened, and I didn’t feel able to accumulate the knowledge needed to understand what lay ahead.

I was so lucky to have Graham to be there for me. It was such a confusing and tough time. As I write these lines, I find myself in tears think­ing of all the people who are facing the same situation right now, some of whom might not have a ‘Graham’ by their side to share the load.

It was around this early stage that my rules on how to get through this period of my life began to emerge. I wonder if I was perhaps just trying to create some sort of structure for myself. I was used to being busy with work and all the things that go together to create a ‘normal’ life, and suddenly that had all disappeared.

So the following rules became my sort of internal set of guidelines:

1. Do exactly what the doctor and all the nursing staff tell you to do
2. Make as little fuss as possible
3. Look forward and not back.

As I waivered each day, I went back to these rules and re-set myself on track.

The first rule, “Do exactly what the doctor and all the nursing staff tell you to do,” was the easiest to keep. The medical team had so much experience with multiple myeloma and with patients in my position that it would have been madness not to do what they suggested.

Consequently, I took my medicine as instructed (even the liquid potassium!), sat up in bed when I was desperate to lie down, called the nurse every time I wanted to go to the loo (I really hated that), reported – endlessly – on everything that went into and out of my body each day, and ate three meals a day.

On a lighter note, one nurse said to me “No matter how you feel, try to get up and have a shower each day; it will make you feel so much better.” It was good advice. Having a shower did make me feel better, although it seemed like a major achievement some days.

The second rule, “Make as little fuss as possible,” was sometimes quite a challenge. When the doctor arrived in my room, he would ask me how I was. My natural inclination was to say fine because I didn’t want to make a big fuss about me. However, this was clearly a somewhat ridiculous answer. I hated going through lists of all the things that didn’t seem right, but I knew I had to tell him.

Then there were all the other small things that were more upsetting and annoying. Those were the things I tried to make less of. Yet I sometimes felt myself cracking inside. I am British. I like tea in the morning. I like hot tea in the morning. I like a little milk in my tea. And I want to drink the tea in a non-plastic cup. Was this really too much to ask?

After days and days of requests, the lukewarm brew remained almost undrinkable. Should I complain, or could I just learn to leave it be and move on?

I moved on.

The third rule, “Look forward and not back,” was also hard to follow at times. As many of you may have done, I asked myself questions about my diagnosis: Why had I become so ill before I was diagnosed? Despite all my medical visits in Singapore and the UK, why had this condition been missed?

I realized pretty quickly, however, that asking these kinds of questions was not helpful to me and did not help me come to terms with the situation I was in. So I tried to keep looking forward.

Initially the things to look forward to were simple. I might be able to go back home to our apartment soon (I can look forward to a nice hot cup of tea!). Maybe quite soon I might be able to go to a coffee shop and have a cappuccino and a croissant and be a bit of a normal person again. Then, in time, I moved to looking forward to much more active things, such as a walk in the Botanical Gardens and a visit back to my home in Scotland. Looking forward helped a lot and I could often focus on better times ahead.

On balance, I feel that I mostly followed my rules quite well but, I guess I would have to check with other people to get a true report on my compliance!

What followed this initial period was three months of induction therapy with Velcade ^[1] (bortezomib), Revlimid ^[2] (lenalidomide), and dexamethasone ^[3] (Decadron), a stem cell transplant followed by a horrible period of engraftment syndrome, and now maintenance therapy with Revlimid. It sounds simple but, of course, there are many other stories to tell that I will return to in future columns.

I am delighted to say that I am currently in remission. My three rules seem pretty much business as usual now, although they have evolved slightly. I still take the meds, and I still try to ignore the side effects, but I can look forward to more exciting things, such as an eight-day walking holiday in Australia.

Of course even better might be a post maintenance period when I can maybe enjoy a bit of real rule breaking once again!

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As this is my first column for The Beacon, it seems an appropriate time to explain the title of my column, “Living For Lamingtons.”

Once I was beginning to recover from all the myeloma treatment, I started to yearn for the freedom to do all the things I love to do. This includes going walking in Australia, skipping about, and eating lamingtons (lots of them). Lamingtons, for the uninitiated, are Australian sponge and coconut cakes. I associate eating laming­tons with being well and happy, and looking forward to the simple pleasures of times ahead.