On a cold day at the end of January, I was working out at the fitness center when I reflected about the role exercise has played in my life and how it has changed since my myeloma diagnosis. I had been walking outdoors a lot with our ‘grandpuppy,’ but the cold weather had driven me indoors for exercising.

The fitness center has been part of my life since before I had the vertebral fractures that led to my myeloma diagnosis in 2009. In fact, my husband and I have had a …

I’m confused.

I am a 52-year old man who has always been driven by a sense of duty to my business and career. Earning enough money to support myself and/or my family has been one of the most important things in my life since I was about nine years old.

You see, I was one of those annoying kids who showed up at your door every couple of months trying to sell the latest in greeting cards, seeds, or some sort of candy to help pay my way to camp. After getting …

On January 28, 2014, I was sitting comfortably in a chair in my hospital room reading on a laptop. It was about 30 minutes after noon when the door opened and the “team” entered. And quite a team it was.

Six team members - nurses, technicians, and a physician’s assistant - wheeled in a cart loaded with a cooler, a tub with heated water and various tubes, syringes, and other equipment, including a dish of mints. Despite the assault on my senses this procession produced, I was relatively calm.

The day before, …

An oncologist you’ve just met says you have multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow. He or she reminds you that you aren’t a sta­tis­tic. “With luck,” your oncologist says, “You can live six or seven years — even longer. We should start treatment immediately.”

You and your caregiver frantically hit the Internet, hopefully viewing sites rec­om­mended by your doctor first. Overall survival statistics are all over the map: from three or four years to a decade or more.  Much of the survival disparity has to do with genetics.  Do you have chromosomal abnormalities, …

I was still a bit drowsy when I arrived at the hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, for my recent mid-January, 6:30 a.m. PET scan appointment. As an inveterate night owl, I was less than thrilled about having to beat the sun out of bed and the early bird to the worm, but, nonetheless, I was up-and-at-‘em-Atom-Ant, ready to face the typically long first day of a myeloma check-up.

A text from my school-age daughters and elementary principal wife back home in Missouri gleefully stated that they were doing an ‘It’s a Snow …

The winds of change are blowing, as they do for all of us – myeloma patients, caregivers, and healthy people alike – and so I answer with the activities of normalcy. Lately that means putting away the holiday décor.

There’s something comforting to me about putting everything back in its place, for as much as I love gazing upon my Christmas villages or the white porcelain ornaments on the tree, I always welcome a return to un­cluttered counters and furniture in its rightful place.

Much to my surprise, however, I do have …

I realized something weird the other day: I really miss donating blood.

Of all of the things multiple myeloma has taken from me, I’d never really con­sid­ered this one: I can’t be a blood donor ever again.

And that kind of stinks.

I take Revlimid (lenalidomide), which means – understandably – that I’m for­bid­den from sharing my blood with others. My blood is poisonous and dangerous and nobody wants it.

If you’ve ever taken Revlimid, you’ve taken the monthly phone survey that’s required before you can get your drugs. Question …