Living with multiple myeloma for the last decade, I have tunnel vision. It’s myeloma this, myeloma that. It’s the oncology appointment every five weeks, the bottle of Revlimid (lenalidomide) on the table, the peripheral neuropathy, the blood draws, the whole nine yards of myeloma. Even this column: myeloma, oncology, death, and treatment. Myeloma, myeloma, myeloma.

Tunnel vision.

Not that myeloma isn’t a major factor in my life. I’m not suggesting that a little positive thinking or a different focus would allow me to zip through my days worry-free and …

This month marks ten years since my initial diagnosis of multiple myeloma. The more days, months, and years between then and now, the farther out I am on the branch of mortality. As I told my friend Larry, who was diagnosed with myeloma 13 years ago, we’re both at the point we can hear that branch creaking and threatening to crack.

What an excellent time to read Atul Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal.

Being Mortal is getting a lot of favorable attention, and for good reason. Gawande, a surgeon and medical writer, …

I have a good friend who’s been bugging me lately about my health. Call him Bob (which is, in fact, his real name). Bob and I have been friends for almost 30 years, despite the fact that we have not seen one another for almost a quarter century. Bob and his wife have lived in Alaska for the last 22 years, so all of our contact is by phone or email.

Bob is a “fixer.” Bob is a lot of things, to be honest, but high on his list of per­son­al attributes …

The young woman looked at me with concern in her eyes. “So how are you handling this? Do you feel you are coping okay? Is there anything we can provide you?”

No, this was not a social worker at the oncology clinic I frequent. I was not being asked these questions as a patient at all. I was being asked these questions as a caregiver for my elderly aunt.

I have been my Aunt Ginger’s caregiver, first informally, then formally, for the last three years. In recent weeks, the caregiving duties …

My August column was going to be funny (well, maybe at least amusing). My oncologist made such an off the wall statement at my July appoint­ment re­gard­ing mammals and my sudden inexplicable weight loss (never a good sign) that I had pretty much written the column in my head as I drove home from Chicago following our Big Road Trip.

(For those of you wondering after last month’s column, it was a great road trip. It absolutely wore me out, and I was pretty sick by the time we walked back …

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 chop the work week into little tiny pieces. So why not take …

We’ve had a long, slow spring here in Ohio this year. Oh, there have been a few summerlike days here and there, but mostly the weather has been cool and often rainy, more like mid-April than early June. As a result, the peony bushes in my parents’ yard stayed shut tight for the federal Me­mo­ri­al Day but opened in time for the traditional Me­mo­ri­al Day on May 31.

Memorial Day, which began as Decoration Day following the Civil War, is still a big deal in our area. In the weekends leading up …