I have made it five years since my initial diag­nosis, or at least I am hoping to make it to five years, because you should be reading this column right around my five-year mark (January 15, 2015). 

Wow. I have lived with multiple myeloma for five years, or almost 8 per­cent of my time spent here on Earth. Looking at it from the perspective of 8 per­cent of my life with multiple myeloma feels so dif­fer­en­t than looking at it from …

As the 2019 holiday season reaches it peak, all of us here at The Myeloma Beacon would like to thank you, our readers and members of the myeloma com­munity world­wide, for giving us the greatest gift possible: your time.

We ap­pre­ci­ate your coming to The Beacon and reading our articles, letting us know your thoughts about them, and sharing your ex­peri­ences and helping one another.

The holiday season is a time of many dif­fer­en­t traditions. It also is a …

Though it has been almost five years since my initial diag­nosis, I still am somewhat un­cer­tain about what it means to live with multiple myeloma. Where does enjoying your life, LIVING your life (having fun, laughing, enjoyment, etc.) fit in with the very real and serious cir­cum­stance of multiple myeloma?

When first diag­nosed, I was sad, disappointed, un­cer­tain, and scared. It was easy to be this way be­cause I asso­ci­ated having multiple myeloma with con­stant and extreme pain, lots of suffer­ing, …

For many myeloma patients out there, the chal­lenges of weekly treat­ment in­fusions can create an onerous burden for both the patient and their care­giver. What an understatement!

It’s been tough lately. It’s hard to ex­plain to people that you can put up with almost any treat­ment for a short time, but that be­comes sig­nif­i­cantly more chal­leng­ing when you don’t see an end in sight.

With mixed feelings I hear patients “ringing the bell” to signify the end of their …

So, here is my reality: I do not like eating beets. And I do not like having multiple myeloma. 

However, there is a huuuuuge dif­fer­ence be­tween the two “do not likes.”

With the beet issue, I can choose to not buy beets at the grocery store. Problem solved. Beets can be avoided.

Not so with multiple myeloma. I cannot choose, or at least I did not have a choice in getting, multiple myeloma.

No beets is easy. No multiple myeloma? Not …

As you may remember from my pre­vi­ous column, I started treat­ment with Darzalex, Revlimid, and dexa­meth­a­sone in early Octo­ber.

By now, I have re­ceived six weekly Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab) in­fusions, and quite a bit has hap­pened as I adjust to being on a new regi­men.

After the first in­fusion, I had a mild cough that turned into quite a deep, hacking cough. I could hardly sleep for a week. It didn’t appear to be a "productive" cough, so I …

I find the Myeloma Beacon patient columns and forum very in­for­ma­tive and use­ful, but they are surprisingly short on what comes with relapse when there are no more realistic treat­ment options. I’m facing that situation now and thought I’d chronicle my journey along this next part of the road in a regular column, in hopes that it will be of use to others.

I am 81 years old, diag­nosed in June 2017, at age …