I have a new favorite place in our house. It’s a place to discover, create, and retreat. A quiet space with pale walls of robin’s egg blue, creamy white cabinets, and sun beams on butcher block countertops. There are three workspaces in the room: one desk flanked between short book­cases along one wall, and two project tables along the perpendicular walls. It’s perfect for scrapbooking, putting puzzles together, journaling, or just sit­ting peace­fully.

From my workspace I can see the resilient red rosebush that grows in the garden just outside my window, and I often find …

I’ve written before about my Aunt Margie. Margie died from an aggressive case of myeloma, two years ago last month. She lived just a year and a half past her diagnosis.

I miss Margie, and I think about her all of the time. I’ll have moments where I’ll think, “I need to tell Margie about this,” or “I need to ask her about that”, and then I have to stop and catch my breath because, of course, I can’t ask her now.

Margie had an oddball sense of humor. More than …

During a recent conversation I had with a friend, he un­ex­pected­ly asked me what has been the worst part of having multiple myeloma. For­tu­nate­ly, his cell phone rang before I could answer the ques­tion. It saved me from giv­ing an answer to a ques­tion I have never given much thought to.

At various times since then, I have reflected on what has been the worst aspect of living with multiple myeloma.

While I consider myself a reflective person, think­ing back on past ex­per­i­ences of living with this disease is some­thing I have …

I love poetry. I have always loved poetry. Poetry is so many things. It's jazz, it’s a song, it’s a symphony, it's a chant, it’s a nursery rhyme.

And I used to write poetry. But for reasons too personal to share, I have not writ­ten much poetry, except for an occasional parody, for over 20 years.

It was my good friend Mark who showed me the way back to poetry. “Showed me the way” is a bit generous. It was more akin to long-ago days when you clustered around the pool and …

At the end of last month, my husband Dilip and I went on a nine-day road trip from Calgary through the Canadian Rockies to Whistler, British Columbia, on to Vancouver Island, and back to Calgary via Vancouver. It was more than 30 hours of driv­ing al­to­gether, al­though we never drove more than seven hours in one stretch. In our love­ly sum­mer weather, this is doable, which prob­a­bly ex­plains why the traffic was heavy.

Dilip did all the driving, although I offered to help. Maybe I am fine as a ‘co-pilot’, reading the …

I am writing today under the old adage of “misery loves company.” I don’t want you to be mis­er­a­ble, but I just need to share with some­body who understands.

For those of you currently enduring severe myeloma symp­toms or treat­ment side effects, please for­give me for sounding like a spoiled brat. How­ever, there are many of us who ex­per­i­ence myeloma like a dull constant head­ache, rather than a migraine. And that constant ache is a hassle (al­though I’m sure those of you with a migraine would trade for it in a minute …

It’s been 37 long, hard days away from home for my salvage transplant. The good news: I’m home early!

I left last week facing a very difficult decision: Should I take my specialist’s advice and move forward with a second, tandem, stem cell transplant?

My doctor felt if the first one didn’t work, well, skip the second transplant. But if the one I just had got most, or all, of my myeloma, crush it with a second transplant.

“Don’t make a decision now,” he told me and my wife Pattie at our …