This is my 27^th and last column to appear in The Myeloma Beacon.

I wrote my first column in November 2010. At that time, I was seven years past my initial diagnosis and had been in remission for five years. In that first column, I wrote about the experiment of my cracked cup, which is an analogy for figuring out how to live with my flawed but functioning body.

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen’s famous lyrics reveal so much about hardships of …

The last three months have been extraordinarily varied in quality of life for me, reminding me of the title of an old Clint Eastwood movie, “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.”

My good days have been delightful. On my bad days, I've been challenged by a virus or stomach issues. And on my ugly days, I’ve been beset by fevers, coughs, and even worse stomach issues.

It might be a bit of an exaggeration to describe the initial few years of my treatment as a honeymoon, but they certainly seem easy …

Perhaps the title of this column more appropriately should be "Life After CRD," since I've now completed 24 cycles of Kyprolis (carfilzomib), Revlimid (lena­lido­mide), and dexa­metha­sone (Decadron), commonly referred to as CRD, as part of a clinical trial for newly diagnosed patients.

However, since dexa­metha­sone seemed to be the predominate source of my side effects, and be­cause I liked the play on words, I went with the title as shown.

So, I've completed the clinical trial, I've reached stringent complete response, and I've won the first …

Multiple myeloma has a garden variety of symptoms, ranging from bone pain to anemia. The various treatments for myeloma come with a broad assortment of side effects, ranging from neuropathy to neutropenia. Let’s face it: there’s a veritable smorgasbord of myeloma symptoms and side effects to sample every day in Cancerland.

My omnipresent symptom is fatigue. It was a bellwether when I was first diagnosed in 2004 and the canary in the mineshaft this summer when I relapsed.

My fatigue can be a showstopper. My fatigue can be a quiet, polite acquaintance. …

As many of you may already know, February is 'Heart Month,' so I decided to write a bit in my column about blood donations, since that seems to be related to the theme.

The heart is the pump for our blood, and myeloma is one of the three main types of blood cancer, the other two being leukemia and lymphoma.

Back in my pre-myeloma days, I was an occasional blood donor.  Although I only donated about 20 times overall, the process left a big impression on me.

Not only was the …

In the column I wrote two months ago, I relayed how I was doing 100 days after my allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplant.

I struck a pretty optimistic note.  I felt that the transplant itself had gone really well and that the big question that was still out there was whether it would work to control my multiple myeloma for a meaningful amount of time.

Unfortunately, I may have gotten my answer sooner than I expected.

I was really hoping 2013 was going to be a better year healthwise than 2012. …

I understand that it’s not unusual for any family that is touched by cancer to face a number of difficult decisions.  But from my work with other types of cancer, and my experience acting as my wife Pattie’s caregiver when she had cancer, I have learned that those of us battling multiple myeloma are forced to make a lot more decisions than most.

Sure, second opinions are common after any cancer diagnosis.  But many other cancers can either be cured or forced into long-term remission.

Multiple myeloma is different, though.  Myeloma relapses …