I’m confused.

I am a 52-year old man who has always been driven by a sense of duty to my business and career. Earning enough money to support myself and/or my family has been one of the most important things in my life since I was about nine years old.

You see, I was one of those annoying kids who showed up at your door every couple of months trying to sell the latest in greeting cards, seeds, or some …

Takeda Oncology yesterday announced posi­tive results from a key trial testing the in­ves­ti­ga­tional drug ixazomib in re­lapsed multiple myeloma patients.

Participants in the large Phase 3 ixazomib trial, known as the TOUR­MA­LINE MM-1 study, received one of two possible treat­ment regi­mens. One group was treated with ixazomib, Revlimid (lena­lido­mide), and dexa­metha­sone (Decadron), while the other group received a placebo (sugar pill), Revlimid, and dexa­metha­sone.

Investigators conducting the trial recently carried out the first planned …

On January 28, 2014, I was sitting comfortably in a chair in my hospital room reading on a laptop. It was about 30 minutes after noon when the door opened and the “team” entered. And quite a team it was.

Six team members - nurses, technicians, and a physician’s assistant - wheeled in a cart loaded with a cooler, a tub with heated water and various tubes, syringes, and other equipment, including a dish of mints. Despite the assault on …

An oncologist you’ve just met says you have multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. He or she reminds you that you aren’t a sta­tis­tic. “With luck,” your oncologist says, “You can live six or seven years — even longer. We should start treatment immediately.”

You and your caregiver frantically hit the Internet, hopefully viewing sites rec­om­mended by your doctor first. Overall survival statistics are all over the map: from three or four years to a decade or more.  Much of the …

I was still a bit drowsy when I arrived at the hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, for my recent mid-January, 6:30 a.m. PET scan appointment. As an inveterate night owl, I was less than thrilled about having to beat the sun out of bed and the early bird to the worm, but, nonetheless, I was up-and-at-‘em-Atom-Ant, ready to face the typically long first day of a myeloma check-up.

A text from my school-age daughters and elementary principal wife back home …

A new year is upon us.  I hope it has started well for everybody, and that all had a great holiday season!

The last few weeks of 2014 were a hap­pen­ing time for the mul­ti­ple myeloma com­munity. The short span of time witnessed the pub­li­ca­tion of up­dated criteria for the diag­nosis of mul­ti­ple myeloma from the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Work­ing Group (IMWG). In addi­tion, the 56^th annual meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) took place in San Francisco, with …

The winds of change are blowing, as they do for all of us – myeloma patients, caregivers, and healthy people alike – and so I answer with the activities of normalcy. Lately that means putting away the holiday décor.

There’s something comforting to me about putting everything back in its place, for as much as I love gazing upon my Christmas villages or the white porcelain ornaments on the tree, I always welcome a return to un­cluttered counters and furniture …