One of the big things that you hear about with any transplant, but especially with the allogeneic (donor transplant), is that it is critical to get past the first 100 days.

Whenever friends would ask after my transplant when I could relax a little about going out, eating, and life in general, the answer was always, “After the first 100 days.”

I recently passed the famous 100-day mark.

I have to tell you, I didn’t hear any trumpets go off or notice any marching bands.  It turns out, in fact, that for …

Living with multiple myeloma isn’t easy for a number of reasons.  Besides having cancer and dealing with the uncertainty around it, there are hours spent in waiting rooms, along with countless blood draws, tests, and chemotherapy side effects.

But for me, the most difficult part of our new normal is “the switch.”

One minute everything seems fine.  Then without warning, someone or something “flips the switch.”  Suddenly we’re in pain, battling an infection, hospitalized, or standing nose-to-nose with our own mortality.  And it happens all the time.

Let’s stick with the analogy …

While I am not so much a creature of habit, my Wednesday afternoon activities over the last three years have been pretty much chiseled in stone.

At around noon on a typical Wednesday, I drop everything that I’m doing, jump into my car, drive across the Kimberling City Bridge that sits perched 30 feet above beautiful Table Rock Lake, and then wind my way through the rolling Ozark hills and picturesque hollows toward the nationally known tourist and entertainment small city of Branson, Missouri.

Upon arrival at my destination, I am normally …

I imagine people with spouses and sig­nif­i­cant others have someone who helps them remember. It would be hard to erase the marks of disease from life. For those of us who are unpartnered, it’s easier to pretend – to revise the myeloma story as needed.

Forging new rela­tion­ships may be perilous. Dating involves telling tales and revealing secrets.

Living far beyond the initial trauma of receiving a multiple myeloma diag­nosis is a blessing. In my case, I regard my journey into that territory as an unfortunate detour of some kind. I escaped …

I’m writing this column a few days before Thanksgiving, on a bright and glorious fall day.

There’s a little excitement in the air, as we prepare to take the train to Washington D.C. to have a traditional Thanksgiving meal with our extended family. We are eager for the trip, as this is a year we are especially aware of how much we have to be thankful for.

It’s cool outside, but I’m using a computer in a warm, well-lit room in lower Manhattan. The steam is hissing in the radiators. The refrigerator …

A group of researchers in India published a study recently that had me jump to two conclusions.

Their research followed 170 autologous stem cell transplant patients over the years, starting around 1990, to see how these multiple myeloma patients fared.

There is, of course, good news and bad news.

The first takeway seems to be that you can make a case that things are getting better.

The research adds to the body of knowledge indicating that novel agents are leading to better response rates and increased overall survival for those who …

I mentioned in a recent column how the topics for my columns crop up from a variety of sources.  This month's topic formed in my head (as you might expect, during a dex-day) due to the convergence of three separate, but related items and events:

A recent posting to one of the Beacon columns or forums indicating the site is not much more than a place for everyone to come and drown their sorrows.

A conversation I had with one of my sons that's been an ongoing debate as to whether interacting …