“For as long as I can remember, I have been a builder, a fixer, an explorer,” said myeloma patient Scott Woodward in a speech at an event benefitting Gilda’s Club ^[1], a cancer support group. “You’d want me along if you ever got shipwrecked.”

After a boyhood fixing motorcycles and rider lawnmowers, Woodward is now a New York-based mechanical engineer who researches the fluid dynamics of blood. He has lived with multiple myeloma since his diagnosis just after Christmas in 2005.

Woodward told the Myeloma Beacon that at the time he was diagnosed, he had never heard of multiple myeloma. But as a researcher familiar with reading biomedical literature, he said, “it was pretty easy for me to figure out what the disease was and get lots of technical information.” He keeps up with current information on the disease by subscribing to alerts from the journals Cancer ^[2] and Hematology ^[3], the International Myeloma Foundation ^[4], the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation ^[5], and the Myeloma Minute ^[6].

He soon found that the most disorienting aspect of his diagnosis was dealing with the overwhelming amount of available information.

But for him, more important than all this technical information was finding and connecting with people who had multiple myeloma and other cancers. He wanted to reach others who understood the trauma of getting diagnosed with an incurable disease.

He found support through Gilda’s Club and through his blog, “Laughing Plasma Cells ^[7].”

He described his cancer support group as filled with hope, acceptance, laughter, and enthusiasm. He called it his second home. Extending a welcoming hand to new members gave him meaning and purpose.

As for his blog, Woodward created it to keep his friends and family updated. He found it emotionally exhausting to answer questions and calls from his many concerned friends after the initial diagnosis, so he started blogging to keep in touch. Though he said that he continues to write mainly for his family and friends, writing his own blog and reading others’ blogs have helped Woodward garner a worldwide network of friends, calling other bloggers “phenomenal resources.”

He has advice for those newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma: “I tell them that the most important thing to do is to find other people with multiple myeloma that you can be with personally. If you’re not finding multiple myeloma people, probably the next best thing is a cancer group. Those types of things help with that emotional side of cancer, which can be an intense side of cancer, especially when you have a cancer that they never talk about curing and the life expectancy is relatively short. That can be daunting and life changing.”

In his Gilda’s Club speech, he shared some insight into what it was like for a builder, fixer, and explorer like him to get diagnosed with multiple myeloma. “My ship ran aground. I can’t fix what’s eating at my bones from the inside out,” he said. “The fear paralyzed my confidence and shattered the lives of those that love me dearly.”

However, after seeking and finding support, Woodward had a positive assessment of his life after diagnosis. “I wouldn’t wish a diagnosis like this on anyone,” he said, “but I think that my life is better now than before. I am happier now than before and I’m more fulfilled and I have many more friends than I had before and I guess I’m a little more open and I reach out to more people.”

Early this year, he and his wife adopted a starving stray cat they found underneath their porch. They named the cat Hope.

“I look for hope in being able to touch friends and people around me in a positive, lasting, and enduring way,” Woodward said. “I find hope in living through example.”

For more information on Scott Woodward, please see his blog, “Laughing Plasma Cells ^[7].”