As Mother’s Day ap­proaches, I thought I would share with you the story of a very special woman in my life who con­tinues to show me how to live with myeloma – my mom.

My mom doesn’t have myeloma, but she has had a lifetime of dealing with crip­pling disease both personally and as a care­giver to my dad.

My mom has had a tough life. Born into a family of alcoholics, her child­hood was filled with neglect. She was con­stantly moving from one city to the next to escape last month’s …

I find it fascinating that, in the almost three years since I was diagnosed with terminal multiple myeloma, I haven’t until recently begun to daydream seriously about what I would do if I were pronounced permanently cured today.

I’m not talking about remission, substantial clinical response, minimal residual disease, or any of the other “close-but-not-quite-there” phrases our doctors use, but simply “cured.”

I guess it has taken me this long to absorb my status as a cancer patient and to reach a level of comfort in my treatment to be able …

I would like to address a topic that almost all of us with multiple myeloma have to deal with at one point or another – when to get a stem cell trans­plant.

Many of you reading this have been through this procedure already. It is often prescribed soon after diagnosis for patients with advanced myeloma. Most of these folks didn’t have much choice in the matter; it was something that needed to be done urgently to give them the best chance of survival.

Others – and I am in this second camp …

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 sort of candy to help pay my way to camp. After getting …

During our recent holiday extravaganzas, I was able to spend time with lots of folks who I only see once or twice a year. Along with the frequent “you look good” greetings, I received lots of advice on how to take care of myself. This advice ran the gamut of new cures, the latest supplements I can’t live without, how “some­body’s uncle” changed his life by eating only black beans and brown rice (really!), to simple dietary suggestions.

I have long ago come to grips with the fact that this advice is …

I struggled mightily with my column this month. I started, stopped, started again, and finally gave up on a half-finished story that seemed relevant at the begin­ning, but eventually got mired in minutiae that my heart just wasn’t into.

What struck me was that the things that were important a few weeks ago when I started to write seemed exceptionally trivial just a short time later.

What changed?

My perspective.

You see, during this period I was touched by the situations some of our fellow patients are in and the …

Do you have the time to listen to me whine? Sorry, but I need to vent about the challenges of being terminally ill in America today. I am not sure that it is worse than in other countries. In fact, I am sure it is dramatically better than in most developing nations.

I am not a medical expert, only a patient who has also been a small busi­ness owner most of his life. As such, I am required to put my customer’s interests first or I will surely fail. It boils down …