It’s an early March evening here in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I’m waiting to be called in for my PET scan.

I’m writing this month’s article slowly because some of my close friends back home in Missouri don’t read very fast.

Originally scheduled as a six-month follow-up examination in December, my appointment has been postponed three times. First, there was a change in my new primary doctor’s availability, followed by my lengthy bout with influenza in January, and then …

I am going to tell you something you have probably heard before, but which you may not have fully internalized.

You are in charge of your disease.

Absent mental defect or court order, you simply cannot delegate de­ci­sions about your care to anyone else; not a medical professional, not a spouse, not a friend, not a parent.

If you are going to live with multiple myeloma, you have to own the dis­ease.  You must educate yourself about it, and you …

Significant improvements in donor stem cell trans­planta­tion have been made in recent years. As a result, donor trans­planta­tion – a procedure during which a patient receives stem cells from a healthy donor – has become safer and typically more successful for patients.

The majority of patients undergoing donor stem cell trans­planta­tion receive stem cells from unrelated donors. In these cases, a close match between donor and recipient tissue types is known to play an important important role in trans­plant outcomes. …

What would you do if suddenly, out of the blue, your myeloma just – poof! –disappeared?

I know many people achieve remission after treatment, but what if – after having stable but measurable disease for years – it simply vanished for no reason?

A few months ago, I called the doctor’s office to get my latest test results. The nurse said she couldn’t find the results for my M-spike (monoclonal protein). This has happened before, so I wasn’t worried. I …

Results of a recent Greek study indicate that levels of a multiple myeloma patient’s “un­in­volved” im­mu­no­glob­u­lins at the time of diag­nosis may have an impact on the patient’s prognosis.

The human body produces a variety of different im­mu­no­glob­u­lins, which are proteins used by the body to fight infections.  In healthy people, the blood levels of the different im­mu­no­glob­u­lins fall within certain known ranges.

Multiple myeloma patients, however, typically overproduce one type of im­mu­no­glob­u­lin, also called the monoclonal (M)-protein, which is …

As I wrestle with the early treatment phase of this disease, it is my hope that by shar­ing my experiences I can provide some valuable insights to readers who are newly diagnosed and beginning treatment.

But before sharing in this column what I have been through as I finish the fifth cycle of treatment, I have two confessions to make.

First, treatment is tough, really tough -- far tougher than I ever imagined it would be. My approach to treatment …

A team of Israeli researchers has expressed concern that surgical scars may be a particularly favorable environment for the development of difficult-to-treat extra­med­ul­lary disease in multiple myeloma patients.

Extramedullary disease occurs when myeloma cells form tumors outside of a patient’s bones.

The Israeli researchers also suggest that novel anti-myeloma therapies –such as thalidomide (Thalomid), Revlimid (lenalidomide), or Velcade (bortezomib) – and perhaps stem cell transplantation may foster the de­vel­op­ment of extra­med­ul­lary disease in scar …