If you have ever read any of my past columns, you will already know that I am all about “carpe diem,” or seizing the day. My father is my inspiration for this outlook. He has spent 50 years battling debilitating multiple sclerosis (MS) with a positive attitude that has allowed him to do the most with whatever he has each day.

My father's amazing ability to keep plugging away with a smile through his life-altering disease has carried me through the difficult task of trying to live with multiple myeloma.

Unfortunately, his …

Life is full of choices and decisions. For those of us afflicted with multiple myeloma, we are forced to make decisions that, prior to our diagnosis, we never imagined we would have to make. Is a second opinion necessary? Do I watch and wait or start treatment immediately? Undergo a stem cell trans­plant or even a tandem trans­plant? Pursue main­te­nance therapy or go treatment-free until relapse?

Unfortunately, these decisions are guided by the necessity of treating an in­cur­able disease. They really have nothing to do with the important parts of our life, …

I was never a fan of the late Joan Rivers, but all the same I’m going to use her trademark line.

Can we talk?

Many of us who live in the myeloma subdivision of Cancer­land deal with a re­peating issue that is so clearly differ­en­tiated along gender lines I am sur­prised no one has raised the issue with the feds.

Women, you all know what I am talking about: the 24-hour urine collection to check for protein.

Surely this was a diagnostic test conceived by and for male patients. In fact, the …

Sometimes in the summer here in the foothills of the Rockies, we have severe thunderstorms and hail. One such storm last month included funnel clouds, a precursor to tornadoes. Although hail came pelting down, no harm to people was reported that afternoon because our whole city was alerted by a tornado watch. My husband Dilip and I were glad not to be out driving around, since some underpasses were flooded and cars were stranded.

There was a silver lining to those ominous storm clouds, as we found out later. They had been …

Let me start out with a quick update about how I’m doing after my salvage transplant earlier this summer.

As I become more active, I’m experiencing more bone pain. It’s hard to know if the pain is caused by old lesions or newly formed ones. I’ll know more later this week after having some tests done.

I’m feeling much stronger; I’m walking, swimming, and doing intense physical therapy. I lost a lot of muscle mass over the summer, but I see improvement already. I’m cautiously optimistic about my future.

Becoming …

If you’ve been brave enough to spend your valuable time reading some of my prior Myeloma Beacon columns and you say to yourself ‘That guy isn’t right!,’ this column might just prove your point.

It occurred to me that in my busyness I haven’t properly thanked the many folks who’ve helped me during my multiple myeloma journey. If I actually had the discipline to write some thank you notes, the following is a sample of what they could look like:

Dear Brand New Phlebotomist,

After last week’s four painful …

So what exactly is next?

That is a question I have been asking myself quite a bit lately. It seems like for the past year or so I have been taking a mental vaca­tion from looking ahead. For an incessant planner like me, this has been a change and, to some degree, a wel­come one.

But now I find myself rolling the question around in my mind. And it arises on mul­tiple levels.

I wonder what is next with my condition. I have been in complete remission for the past year and …