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 …

I have noticed a difference, one I may have mentioned earlier, but one which is becoming more pronounced in recent months. Given my lab results, my myeloma seems to be slipping back into remission. I am grate­ful for that. But after 11 years of the disease and treatments, my body is wear­ing down. To borrow from Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, the night brigade has been out there busily taking down the perimeter defenses.

As a result, I have an increased …

Sometimes I know what I am going to write about several weeks before the column is due, and other times it’s a last minute brainstorm.

For this month, the germ of an idea had been rolling around in my brain for a while. Yet, as you will see, it took an unexpected turn at the last minute.

The subject is the importance of goals.

It has been proven through at least one fairly rigorous study that positive thinking has …

Since it’s nearly the holidays, I’m sure that the story of Apollo 8 is on everyone’s mind.

Well, perhaps not.

Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to leave Earth orbit and fly to the moon, orbiting it on Christmas Eve 1968. The crew broadcast back live TV views of the lunar surface from close up. If you were a young space fan at the time, it was tremendously exciting and felt like an epochal moment in history. …

It is that time of year for seasonal greetings, parties, and gifts.

In my family, we have a tradition of putting stockings on the hearth, filled with interesting, small gifts that are known as stocking stuffers. This tradition dates back to my childhood days, but we continue with it even now, decades later.

I tried to think of what could be useful and appropriate as a stocking stuffer for a myeloma patient and caregiver, and came up with the following …

As I first began the several rounds of chemotherapy for multiple myeloma back in December of 2008, I decided to help combat the effects of chemo brain by working on word and number puzzles and by scribbling my thoughts down into a journal.

Did it work? I don’t know, but it helped to keep my mind occupied and away from the encroaching sadness of fighting cancer far away from my home and my kids as the holidays approached.

One of …

The United States Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion (FDA) has approved elotuzumab for the treat­ment of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

The drug will be sold under the brand name Empliciti, and it will be mar­keted by the U.S. pharma­ceu­tical com­pany Bristol-Myers Squibb. The com­pany said in a press re­lease issued this Monday that it will begin shipping Empliciti “within the next 48 hours.”

Empliciti’s ap­prov­al is for use in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid (lena­lido­mide) and dexamethasone (Decadron) in …