Do you ever wonder if you’re getting all you can get out of life? As multiple myeloma patients, this question is both timely and important to our ability to cope with this disease.

As I mentioned in my first column last month, I am a 51-year-old man who was diagnosed with early-stage multiple myeloma just over two years ago.

My experience was a little atypical in that I didn’t have any bone lesions or other signs of cancer prior …

French researchers earlier this week published updated results of a small Phase 2 clinical trial testing the combination of Revlimid, Velcade, and dexa­metha­sone (RVD) in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma pa­tients.

The researchers found that RVD, when given before and after stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion – and when followed by maintenance therapy with Rev­limid – led to very deep treatment responses and significant survival rates.

The 31 newly diagnosed patients in the French trial initially were treated with three cycles of RVD …

We have been trying to plan a small vacation. The operative phrase here is “small.”

A friend of ours is getting married in August in a Monday evening cere­mony in the Cincinnati area. That means an overnight stay and puts us about 120 miles south of our front door. At the end of the same week, we need to be in Chicago for two nights of concerts, including a world premiere.

Those two events, bookends to the week, pretty much …

One of the first recorded cases of multiple myeloma in the modern era was that of Thomas Alexander McBean.

McBean was a well-to-do grocer in London who, in 1844, developed a condition which at the time had no name and no known cause.

It is now known, however, that what McBean had was multiple myeloma. This has been determined, in part, through work done by Dr. Henry Bence Jones in analyzing a sample of McBean's urine -- work which led …

The month of July has always been a special month for me. There are many family birthdays, and my husband Dilip’s and my wedding anni­versary also falls into this month (it’s our 37th this year).

However, five years ago, in July 2009, I had a very bad month. That was when my myeloma was diagnosed, and it has changed the course of my life forever. Every year since then, I have felt apprehensive as my myeloma anniversary ap­proached.

This year, …

It’s been said over and over that multiple myeloma encompasses a wide spectrum of diseases.

It includes people with the precursor diseases monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering multiple myeloma. It also includes newly diagnosed patients with active myeloma, those approaching their first stem cell transplant, some patients who are fairly stable on maintenance therapy, and those progressing after various treatments.

I think the different phases of the disease are reflected well by the diverse perspectives of the …

The title of this column is a bit of an overstatement. I never lived alone as a her­mit in a cabin in the woods. I have loving, caring family and friends.

However, I have always been comfortable with a fair amount of alone time. In fact, I often crave it.

I heard a recent radio interview with Jane Goodall, the famous prima­tol­o­gist and anthropologist. The interviewer asked her if spending years in the jungle among the chimpanzees drove her stir …