It’s been a long winter here in the foothills of the mountains. How­ever, since my last column in April, spring has sprung. We can finally enjoy gardening, walking outdoors without winter clothes on, and generally see the season unfold.

This year has been dif­fer­en­t though. The merriness of seeing the flowers and greenery of spring is subdued by the fact of being many weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a time of un­cer­tainty, worry, and even tragedy for some. It is reassuring to see that the seasons are still progressing as …

I must be honest with you, I think about dying a lot. Certainly not all of the time, but it is a big part of my daily routine and has been since I was diag­nosed. And that is some­thing that is new to my life.

Much of my life after diag­nosis has been about the same as before diag­nosis. I still work and put in time at the office. I still play golf and try to exercise at least four to five times a week. My wife and I still visit with our friends, …

It had been almost two months since I stopped treat­ment, and it seemed to be going well. Then I crashed, hard. I woke up in the small hours of the morning feeling miserable, heart flutters, elevated pulse rate, sore all over. It was the same in the morning after a fitful sleep. No appetite, breathless with any movement. Not fun. Like detoxing all over again.

I was better the next day, not 100 per­cent (whatever that is anymore), but reason­ably functional. The crash might have been caused by my pushing a little too hard the evening before, …

Ten years ago, I was at my chiropractor seek­ing help for a chronic low back problem. I’d been seeing her for years with on again, off again back pain, presumably from work­ing as a nurse for many years. While her ad­just­ments were helpful for my back issue, I told her “I just don’t feel like running.” She thought that was strange, coming from me, a runner / jogger, former Ironman triathlete, and typically active and energetic person. So she ordered blood work (who knew chiropractors could do that?).

The result showed con­tinued …

This column will be dif­fer­en­t from my pre­vi­ous ones. I’ve been struggling to find the right words.

I can’t pretend: I am frustrated. In fact, I’m very frustrated about the current situation. I imagine I’m not the only one, so I decided to share my thoughts here.

It seems as if, at the moment, nor­mal life is on hold. Every day brings more terrible news about the spread of the latest coronavirus dis­ease, or COVID-19, across the globe. Cases in­crease and deaths follow. It’s totally grim.

Right now I feel sad for …

Several months have gone by since I last wrote about my current myeloma treat­ment regi­men con­sist­ing of Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab), Revlimid (lena­lido­mide), and dexa­meth­a­sone.

As you may remember from my last treat­ment update, my Darzalex in­fusions were scheduled to be admin­istered once a week for eight treat­ments, then once every two weeks for another eight sessions, and then once every four weeks there­after. I am now on the once every four-week schedule.

Overall, I’m happy to report that I have man­aged to live a fairly nor­mal life, up until the point …

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 …