It’s 2:30 a.m. The night sky is dark and vast, but the myriad high-rises of the medical center glow with hazy white outlines from this 18th floor window. I can see the helipad on the roof beneath me and the blinking blue-tipped antennas that guide pilots to the lifelines below.

My husband, Daniel, is finally sleeping in his bed, directly across from my watch­ful gaze, but I am too weary to sleep, so I watch, from this room with …

Recently I spent a lot of time fighting a new enemy in my myeloma battle: a treat­ment denial by my insurance company.

This hasn’t been an issue for me up to this point. The treat­ments I had received were obviously very expensive, but they were all covered and, thanks to my employer’s generosity, I have very low premiums and a very low out-of-pocket cap.

I am very aware of the stress that my family and I could experience if I …

I hope that all readers are enjoying this season, mid-way between winter and spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and mid-way between summer and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere!

Recently, my husband Dilip and I took a two-week trip to Australia, where we really enjoyed being in peak summer weather. That trip has taken some of the bite out of our winter, since we are still experiencing severe cold and heavy snowfalls here in Canada, even in March. We all …

Perhaps it sounds a bit cheesy, but I get great pleasure when I make, or think I make, other people happy. This may just be a simple char­ac­ter­istic of being human, but it's certainly some­thing that matters a lot to me. It's great fun when you seem to succeed, and it's lovely to plan for your next 'attack'!

I'm not talking about fancy gifts or huge sur­prises, just little gestures, or maybe notes of thanks and love.

Having multiple myeloma …

The idiom “standing on your own two feet” is pretty much uni­ver­sally defined in English as meaning to be strong and independent, able to take care of yourself. As a moti­va­tional adage, it ranks right up there with “pulling yourself up by your boot­straps” and “rugged indi­vid­ualism.”

All well and good, except when you can’t stand on your own two feet. Right now as I write this column, I am weeks away from that act.

In early February, I …

I am often surprised at the things that bring people together. Recently, I shared an article online about one of my favorite musicians, Elvis Costello. This sparked a conversation with fellow Beacon columnist, Nancy Shamanna, who also likes his music and wrote a column named after his song, “Watching the Detectives.”

She told me that she used to listen to that song over and over again before getting the results from her blood tests, thinking of the “detectives” in …

When I was first diag­nosed with multiple myeloma in the spring of 2015, my doctor said I didn't need to begin initial treat­ment until at least the end of the year. Instead of hearing the doctor say, "You are basically symptom-free, be careful of strain­ing your back, drink lots of fluids, and enjoy the summer," I spent the bulk of my time think­ing about how sick I would become when treat­ment began.

My family spends substantial time each summer …