I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me.

I was packed together like sardines with hundreds of other anxious runners near the starting line of a big deal marathon.

Photographers were busy capturing images that they would, in turn, share with the world.

Maybe my angst was just pre-race jitters.

Crowds lined the streets and kids held up hand-made signs to en­cour­age their favorites onward.

Anticipating the sharp report of the starter’s pistol, the athletes steeled themselves for the 26-mile and 385-yard run.

I looked at my wristwatch to …

I’m not exactly sure when it happened.   Maybe it changed two or three years ago. 

Regardless of when, the result is clear: I can’t remember what it’s like to not have multiple myeloma.

I’m not a poet – I haven’t written any poetry since high school.  But I would like to give it a try this month:

Do you remember when you didn’t have to live with pain
Aching bones, twitching nerves, and needles
Every day, every week, again and again
 …

All around me, spring has sprung, as Mother Nature begins anew.

Earlier this season, bright songbirds and plant-filled nurseries issued clarion calls to action, and I obeyed. I planted red, yellow, and blush colored roses. I arranged a space for three hydrangeas under the live (evergreen) oak tree, and my irises are showing signs of life. I’m excited about potential blooms and al fresco dining on cool spring nights.

But, honestly, it’s not the usual cabin fever that has me traipsing through the tulips. I am warming from a long, two-year winter …

Over the last 10 weeks, I have spent four or five weeks in the hematology/​on­col­o­gy ward of Mt. Sinai hospital here in Manhattan.

I had reached a crisis point in my four-year battle with multiple myeloma.

The original hospitalization was for the installation of a port and admin­is­tra­tion of a treatment consisting of dexamethasone (Decadron), cyclo­phos­pha­mide (Cy­tox­an), etoposide (VP-16), and cisplatin, commonly ab­bre­vi­ated as DCEP, in a last ditch effort to get my myeloma under con­trol.

If the myeloma gets sufficiently under control with DCEP, I will have an­oth­er autologous …

Have you ever had a doctor break up with you?

I’ve gotten to know a lot of doctors over the past eight years. Some have been with me since my myeloma diagnosis; others have come and gone.

Before my diagnosis, I was eerily healthy. Even as a kid, I rarely had any­thing more serious than the sniffles. For most of my life, I saw a doctor once a year for my annual checkup, and that was about it. Even my preg­nancy was completely uneventful. I showed up for my regular checkups, had …

Despite being a lifelong Boston Celtics fan, one of my favorite coaches is former Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley.

I know that sounds traitorous to most Celtics fans, es­pe­cial­ly con­sider­ing the fierceness of the teams’ rivalry in the early and mid 1980s:  Bird versus Magic, Showtime versus Blue Collar, Kareem versus The Chief, McHale versus Worthy.

With all due respect to Lebron James, Kevin Durant, and the rest of the NBA today, those were the glory days of the NBA!

As a young coach during that time, I consumed everything Pat …

Remember Love Canal?

If you came of age in the 1970s or earlier in the United States, you surely re­mem­ber Love Canal.

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, built atop a chem­i­cal waste dump that had been closed and covered with dirt in the early 1950s. An elementary school was built first, followed soon by the houses.

Even though residents soon started noticing odd smells and oily sub­stances leaching up into the play­ground, it wasn’t until 1976 that the dump, after unusually heavy rains and winter weather, …