One of my responsibilities as a school superintendent is to check the roads during inclement weather to determine whether school should be delayed or closed.

During a recent early-morning road check through thick, patchy fog, I couldn't help but think that making decisions about delaying or closing school due to fog is similar to living a life with multiple myeloma.

The arrival of fog is often completely unexpected and, unlike with snow and ice storms, I rarely receive a weather warning about approaching fog.

Similarly, many of us had never heard of …

The young woman looked at me with concern in her eyes. “So how are you handling this? Do you feel you are coping okay? Is there anything we can provide you?”

No, this was not a social worker at the oncology clinic I frequent. I was not being asked these questions as a patient at all. I was being asked these questions as a caregiver for my elderly aunt.

I have been my Aunt Ginger’s caregiver, first informally, then formally, for the last three years. In recent weeks, the caregiving duties …

I relapsed six or seven months ago. That fact was made painfully clear when I broke a rib getting into my wife’s car; several new lesions had weakened the ribs on my right side.

I assumed the acute pain was caused by the fracture. While I’m sure the break contributed to my discomfort, it turns out that one of the lesions was pressing on a nerve that runs along the underside of my rib cage. My medical oncologist immediately consulted with my radiation oncologist. I started radiation therapy the next day.

My pain began to …

The day you find out you have multiple myeloma is obvi­ous­ly one of the hardest days in your life.

It is a very personal experience, but I’m sure you can remember your feel­ings of shock, fear, disbelief, or anger when you were told that you have multiple my­e­lo­ma. Some of you may have felt relief that you have put a face on the mystery.

What follows that day can have a profound im­pact on the rest of our lives. I want to share my experi­ence with the newly diag­nosed patients …

A few weeks ago, a letter arrived in the mail from the Provincial Motor Vehicles Department. I was puzzled, since my driver’s license doesn’t expire until 2017. The letter contained a notice about renewing my ‘handicapped’ parking pass. My husband Dilip had gotten the pass for us after the catastrophic events five years ago, when I had back injuries so severe I could barely walk for even a short distance.

I don’t use that pass anymore. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about it. So, when the letter arrived, I …

I don’t get headaches very often, but the one I was nurs­ing while curled up in a chair in the waiting room of the bone mar­row clinic was a doozy. I pulled my favorite St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap down over my eyes to shutter out the bright overhead lights.

Normally I enjoy the friendly ‘Who’s your doctor?’ and ‘Where’re y’all from?’ back-and-forth banter often heard in such gathering places, but until it was my turn up at bat in the bone marrow suite, I opted to tune out from the world …

It’s a Tuesday evening, and I have the house all to myself.  I sit at my desk, with a generous pour of red wine, and Sara MacLachlan softly singing through the speakers. My hands are poised upon the keyboard, and I’m ready to type this month’s column.

Despite the inspiring ambience, my mind resists the usual flow of words.  I want to write something inspiring and uplifting.  But in my mind’s eye, I see numbers where the words should be.  They are large, pulsating, dig­i­tal white numbers in a dark mental void. …