High on the front façade of the former high school in our town are two engraved sayings. The one pertinent in my life right now? “New occasions teach new duties.”

I’ll say.

In mid-July, I was diag­nosed with type 2 diabetes. For the record, it runs in my family on both sides. Further, for the record, my personal physician and I had been watching for it. So it was not a surprise when my HbA1C level, a key test for diabetes, came back high for a second time.

Just because it wasn’t …

I am not sure if I’ve always been a worrier or not. I think my worrying has been, and maybe still is, in the normal range of worrying, but of course it is rather difficult to tell.

As I’ve mentioned before, prior to being diag­nosed with multiple myeloma, there was a long period of time when I had a lot of unpleasant symp­toms, including back pain, rib pain, and periph­eral neu­rop­athy, to name a few.

Doctors and other medical professionals with whom I consulted at that time told me that I should …

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” - Dr. Seuss

Two years. Where has the time gone?

I just celebrated the second anniversary of my au­tol­o­gous stem cell trans­plant. At times, it seems like only yesterday. At other times, I can hardly remember it and have to wonder if it happened at all.

It is human nature to mark the anniversary of events, big and …

It’s already August, and summer goes by so quickly! The spring and early summer flowers are giving way to del­phin­iums, roses, asters, and sun­flowers. This spring I planted seeds for sun­flowers and nasturtiums in my garden, and I think they will be in full bloom this month.

Thankfully, my life is going along quite smoothly now, and I am in the midst of a busy family life. My husband and I have had our fourth grand­child, born to our older daughter and her husband last month, another baby boy. Since we have …

Here we are again. It’s 4 a.m. and Daniel, my husband with myeloma, sleeps inter­mittently between inter­rup­tions from the hospital staff. His last dosage of Lovenox (enoxaparin) was admin­istered at 2 a.m., and they’ve just come in again to get his blood pressure, tem­per­a­ture, and urine output (which hasn’t changed since the pre­vi­ous inter­rup­tion).

Last time I wrote such a column, we were on the stem cell trans­plant floor at the cancer center, trying to understand Daniel’s in­fec­tion and immunity issues that hospitalized him for two days.

Tonight, we are in the emergency …

I’ve recently returned from a walking safari in northern Kenya. The words that best describe how I feel about our trip are simply: thank you, or in the Samburu language, ashe oleng.

It was an unwritten, unexpressed dream of mine for such a long time to return to this beautiful land and its people. Ever since my multiple myeloma diag­nosis in 2015, I’ve almost been frightened to think that it might be possible. But it has happened, and I am so thankful.

It was very dif­fi­cult to know if I would be …

I like to read mystery novels sometimes, and I started that back in my childhood reading Nancy Drew books. As I became older, I realized that there are many unsolved mysteries in the world, and the medical field has more than its fair share of them. When I con­sider how medical research in the field of multiple myeloma alone has progressed recently, it seems obvious to me that the more researchers learn about immunity and hematology, the more likely it is that cures can be found for pre­vi­ously incurable diseases.

If you …