Perhaps it sounds a bit cheesy, but I get great pleasure when I make, or think I make, other people happy. This may just be a simple char­ac­ter­istic of being human, but it's certainly some­thing that matters a lot to me. It's great fun when you seem to succeed, and it's lovely to plan for your next 'attack'!

I'm not talking about fancy gifts or huge sur­prises, just little gestures, or maybe notes of thanks and love.

Having multiple myeloma doesn't change this in a negative way at all. In fact, I …

The idiom “standing on your own two feet” is pretty much uni­ver­sally defined in English as meaning to be strong and independent, able to take care of yourself. As a moti­va­tional adage, it ranks right up there with “pulling yourself up by your boot­straps” and “rugged indi­vid­ualism.”

All well and good, except when you can’t stand on your own two feet. Right now as I write this column, I am weeks away from that act.

In early February, I had a torn peroneal tendon (think “ankle”) repaired sur­gi­cally. While the surgery …

I am often surprised at the things that bring people together. Recently, I shared an article online about one of my favorite musicians, Elvis Costello. This sparked a conversation with fellow Beacon columnist, Nancy Shamanna, who also likes his music and wrote a column named after his song, “Watching the Detectives.”

She told me that she used to listen to that song over and over again before getting the results from her blood tests, thinking of the “detectives” in her blood that would indicate how she was doing with her myeloma. …

When I was first diag­nosed with multiple myeloma in the spring of 2015, my doctor said I didn't need to begin initial treat­ment until at least the end of the year. Instead of hearing the doctor say, "You are basically symptom-free, be careful of strain­ing your back, drink lots of fluids, and enjoy the summer," I spent the bulk of my time think­ing about how sick I would become when treat­ment began.

My family spends substantial time each summer in eastern Washington enjoying nature and time to­gether. During the summer of …

It is February, and with it comes Valentine’s Day, the day on which we cherish our loved ones. And I have many people in my life who I cherish. As it has turned out in recent years, we have leaned on and tried to help each other through many difficult times.

First and foremost, I am grateful for my husband Dilip. We have been married for 40 years now and can look back on many great times to­gether. We met in the biology depart­ment at the University of Calgary, where we found …

At the end of January, there was an eclipse of the Moon that was described by more adjectives than I have ever seen for one before: a “blue blood supermoon” eclipse.

The event brought to mind what was, for me, definitely one of the highlights of 2017, and one with obscure parallels to multiple myeloma: the August eclipse of the Sun.

I had to travel to the Pacific Northwest for a space conference that was scheduled to start the day after the eclipse and was situated near the path of …

When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, the condition had progressed into the full-blown form of the disease. It was advanced myeloma (stage 3) that had to be treated immediately. As I've described in previous columns, I was in a bad way, with bone damage, lung damage, and biochemistry all over the place. Fortunately, I responded well to the treatment I received, and I am now in remission.

Once I returned to better health and became more knowledgeable about multiple myeloma, I could not help but wonder how life might have been …