If you’ve been brave enough to spend your valuable time reading some of my prior Myeloma Beacon columns and you say to yourself ‘That guy isn’t right!,’ this column might just prove your point.

It occurred to me that in my busyness I haven’t properly thanked the many folks who’ve helped me during my multiple myeloma journey. If I actually had the discipline to write some thank you notes, the following is a sample of what they could look …

So what exactly is next?

That is a question I have been asking myself quite a bit lately. It seems like for the past year or so I have been taking a mental vaca­tion from looking ahead. For an incessant planner like me, this has been a change and, to some degree, a wel­come one.

But now I find myself rolling the question around in my mind. And it arises on mul­tiple levels.

I wonder what is next with my …

I have a new favorite place in our house. It’s a place to discover, create, and retreat. A quiet space with pale walls of robin’s egg blue, creamy white cabinets, and sun beams on butcher block countertops. There are three workspaces in the room: one desk flanked between short book­cases along one wall, and two project tables along the perpendicular walls. It’s perfect for scrapbooking, putting puzzles together, journaling, or just sit­ting peace­fully.

From my workspace I can see the resilient red rosebush that …

I’ve written before about my Aunt Margie. Margie died from an aggressive case of myeloma, two years ago last month. She lived just a year and a half past her diagnosis.

I miss Margie, and I think about her all of the time. I’ll have moments where I’ll think, “I need to tell Margie about this,” or “I need to ask her about that”, and then I have to stop and catch my breath because, of course, I can’t …

During a recent conversation I had with a friend, he un­ex­pected­ly asked me what has been the worst part of having multiple myeloma. For­tu­nate­ly, his cell phone rang before I could answer the ques­tion. It saved me from giv­ing an answer to a ques­tion I have never given much thought to.

At various times since then, I have reflected on what has been the worst aspect of living with multiple myeloma.

While I consider myself a reflective person, think­ing back …

I love poetry. I have always loved poetry. Poetry is so many things. It's jazz, it’s a song, it’s a symphony, it's a chant, it’s a nursery rhyme.

And I used to write poetry. But for reasons too personal to share, I have not writ­ten much poetry, except for an occasional parody, for over 20 years.

It was my good friend Mark who showed me the way back to poetry. “Showed me the way” is a bit generous. It was …

At the end of last month, my husband Dilip and I went on a nine-day road trip from Calgary through the Canadian Rockies to Whistler, British Columbia, on to Vancouver Island, and back to Calgary via Vancouver. It was more than 30 hours of driv­ing al­to­gether, al­though we never drove more than seven hours in one stretch. In our love­ly sum­mer weather, this is doable, which prob­a­bly ex­plains why the traffic was heavy.

Dilip did all the driving, although I …