I am now the proud possessor of a Rochester Library Friends’ Bookstore punch card.

I was back in Rochester, Minnesota, in September for a quarterly check at the Mayo Clinic. I had arrived in town from Oregon a few days before my appoint­ment, to give myself the opportunity to collect my urine in relative comfort and without the oversight of the TSA. My husband Warren had not yet joined me from Ohio. So exploring the town on foot, albeit never …

Mental health professionals would probably scoff at my self-diagnosis, but by most definitions of the word, I think I have become a hypochondriac.

My general understanding of hypochondria is that it is an unusual or ex­cessive concern about your health; a tendency to fear or imagine that you have illnesses that you do not actually have.

One description of hypochondria states that it persists even after a phy­si­cian has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms …

The sunrises here in the foothills are spectacular in the fall. Beautiful oranges, pinks, and lavenders light the clouds from below. In addition, the leaves are in full splendor, shining in gold, orange, and red. There isn’t a nicer time of year to get outdoors. It inspires me to lace up my trainers, put on a fitness tracker, plug in some ear buds, and head out for a walk.

A daily walk seems quite normal to me because when I …

Two subjects that I seem to spend a lot of time think­ing about these days are multiple myeloma and rocket science. This is not all that surprising really, as I was a university professor of aero­space en­gi­neer­ing, teach­ing subjects that could loosely be termed “rocket science,” when I was diag­nosed with myeloma in 2006.

It was in the late spring of 2005 that I experienced what was probably, in retro­spect, the first sign that something was wrong with my …

While basking in the afterglow of a recent gazillion-course United Methodist pot luck supper, one of my very favorite church ladies sauntered over and confided in me that one of her elderly friends back in Iowa had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

As we talked about how her friend was dealing with his formidable chal­lenges and I shared about the frustrations that I was facing, she caught me totally off guard when she said:

"You know, all in all, you …

Last month I promised an update on how I responded to the salvage au­tol­ogous stem cell transplant I underwent in July. The news is good!

Although some active myeloma remains in the occipital lesion at the base of my skull, and in both hips, all lesions have significantly improved. A half dozen other lesions are clear. And the extramedullary plasmacytoma that was growing in the lymph nodes in my groin? Gone!

I had a 0.2 g/dL M-spike going in and …

I have written before about our need for help. No cancer patient can go it alone.

One of my fellow columnists recently wrote a compelling column about her caregiver and his importance in her battle with myeloma. The primary caregiver is the most important person in our lives.

In my case, fiancée Audrey has been an equal part of the team from the very beginning. I could not have dealt with the disease if she had not been there …