I am scheduled to see a myeloma expert at the Mayo Clinic on the first Tuesday in June.

These past several days, I have been busy gathering the requested med­i­cal records, sending the required insurance information, and arrang­ing for the glass slides of my last bone marrow biopsy to be shipped to Min­ne­sota.

As I pull together the various pieces of the trip (including making sure the home front is covered), I am reminded of a line from a wry review of a chil­dren’s book by E. B. White. The book contained …

Just when you think you’ve got this myeloma thing figured out, there’s so much to learn all over again.

Look­ing ahead, most of us have an idea about what we’d do when we start running out of FDA-approved drugs to help us: join a clinical trial. And there are literally hundreds of them for multiple myeloma patients.

So no worries, right? Simply pick one from column A, B, or C, and away we go. Hopefully, our doctor can help us find one that is likely to work for us and re­cruit­ing …

Earlier this winter, while browsing through a book­shop, I came across an an­thol­ogy of poetry called ‘Learn by Heart Poetry - Verse to Enjoy and Cherish for Life,’ compiled by George Davidson. That book included a poem I had heard of, but not completely read before, called ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph (1932 - ).

The main theme of the poem is that a woman is wondering how she will live her life when she becomes old. The poem starts out with the fol­low­ing verse:

When I am an old woman …

As Mother’s Day ap­proaches, I thought I would share with you the story of a very special woman in my life who con­tinues to show me how to live with myeloma – my mom.

My mom doesn’t have myeloma, but she has had a lifetime of dealing with crip­pling disease both personally and as a care­giver to my dad.

My mom has had a tough life. Born into a family of alcoholics, her child­hood was filled with neglect. She was con­stantly moving from one city to the next to escape last month’s …

A hard-as-nails buddy once asked me: ‘How can you be so brave going through this myeloma crud?’

I’m brave? Not hardly. He wasn’t there on this day:

It was in the spring six years ago that I was having trouble getting com­fort­able in the well-worn recliner in the tiny one-bedroom apartment that I had rented in Little Rock.

As I leaned over to grab something off of an end table, I felt a ‘crunch’ in my side. I moaned and froze, almost afraid to breathe because it might make the pain worse. …

My primary audience for these columns is the myeloma pa­tients and their care­givers who frequent The Myeloma Beacon. But, as I am sure is the case with my fel­low col­um­nists, I share my column with friends and rela­tives by email and by post­ing links on social media. For that reason, I try to make the subjects – although always myeloma-related – somewhat uni­versal.

At the risk of alienating my non-myeloma audience, this month I write about a very specific myeloma-related issue: diarrhea.

And not just any diarrhea, but diarrhea brought about by the myeloma …

I have exciting news, everyone! I’m old!

I turned 40 earlier this month. When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma at age 30, I often wondered if I’d ever see 40.

In fact, during the first few scary years after my diagnosis, I pretty much assumed I wouldn’t.

Forty seemed so old and far away. When you’re diagnosed with a fatal disease at age 30, you don’t really worry about getting old. You don’t plan for anything that’s 10 years away; heck, you don’t plan for anything that’s one year away.

A …