My wife is a saint.

No, she did not coerce me into writing that. As a matter of fact, she does not even know what I am going to write about in a column until I show her the final draft right before I send it out. (Notice that I did make mention of any col­lab­o­rative effort re­gard­ing the writing of my column. Why? Well, it’s a matter of ex­peri­ence and maybe marriage preservation. But I digress.)

I write that my wife is a saint because, frankly, living with someone who has …

The late great comedian George Carlin used to have a routine where he played a sportscaster doing the nightly sports report after having had one too many [you can fill in the blank]. About halfway through this routine, the loopy sportscaster would announce, “And here is a partial score from Yankee Stadium: New York 3.”

Huh? I chuckle when I think about that line because I believe that it so describes living with multiple myeloma.

Partial everything is how we live. Partial in­for­ma­tion is the norm. Don’t get me wrong, I am …

So, you have multiple myeloma.

Okay, let’s read that again. You and I have multiple myeloma. Cancer. Or, as I have heard it described, "The Big C". ("The Big C" in my childhood referred to the logo on a Cleveland Indians baseball cap; my, times have changed.)

Wow. Who would have thought or imagined?

Looking back over the first few years of a “having-cancer” life, I had to first ac­cept reality to move beyond that initial shock / surprise / desire to not believe it was true. I had to ac­cept having multiple myeloma, and in …

I have made it five years since my initial diag­nosis, or at least I am hoping to make it to five years, because you should be reading this column right around my five-year mark (January 15, 2015). 

Wow. I have lived with multiple myeloma for five years, or almost 8 per­cent of my time spent here on Earth. Looking at it from the perspective of 8 per­cent of my life with multiple myeloma feels so dif­fer­en­t than looking at it from a 5-year perspective. Strange, no?

When I was first diag­nosed, trying to know …

Though it has been almost five years since my initial diag­nosis, I still am somewhat un­cer­tain about what it means to live with multiple myeloma. Where does enjoying your life, LIVING your life (having fun, laughing, enjoyment, etc.) fit in with the very real and serious cir­cum­stance of multiple myeloma?

When first diag­nosed, I was sad, disappointed, un­cer­tain, and scared. It was easy to be this way be­cause I asso­ci­ated having multiple myeloma with con­stant and extreme pain, lots of suffer­ing, so much sadness, and of course my coming death. I had an …

So, here is my reality: I do not like eating beets. And I do not like having multiple myeloma. 

However, there is a huuuuuge dif­fer­ence be­tween the two “do not likes.”

With the beet issue, I can choose to not buy beets at the grocery store. Problem solved. Beets can be avoided.

Not so with multiple myeloma. I cannot choose, or at least I did not have a choice in getting, multiple myeloma.

No beets is easy. No multiple myeloma? Not so easy. See the dif­fer­ence?

When I was first diag­nosed with multiple myeloma …

Looking down at the green grass is a good sign. So is the fact that I am writing this article. Both of these little “things.” and so many more, add up to my current status of living with cancer, as opposed to not living.

I am a male, 63 years old, who was diag­nosed with multiple myeloma about 4.5 years ago. Prior to my diag­nosis, I was having tre­men­dous back aches and finally went to an orthopedist who sug­gested an MRI. On a cold Friday in Jan­u­ary­, upon the reading of the …