As humans, we automatically record firsts: our baby’s first steps, our child’s first day of school, our first apartment. In baseball, a fan can tell you where and when a rookie hit his first home run in the majors. We gravitate to­wards firsts.

Lasts are harder. With a handful of exceptions – the last day of school, the last day of work upon retirement – lasts blur together. When was the last time that baby both crawled and walked before giving up crawling entirely? When was the last time that child called you “Mommy” …

One of the songs by Pearl Jam that I like a lot is "Pendulum," the seventh track on their 2013 album "Lightning Bolt." Here are the song's lyrics:

Can't know what's high, 'til you been down so low. The future's bright, lit up with nowhere to go.

To and fro the pendulum throws.

We are here and then we go, my shadow left me long ago. Understand what we don't know.

This might pass, this might last, this may grow. Easy come easy go, easy left me a long time ago.

Not …

Recently, my myeloma specialist sent me for a PET/CT scan. I have had many annual skeletal X-ray scans, but since I now have had two cancers (multiple myeloma and breast cancer), and the PET/CT pro­ce­dure scans more deeply into the bones and tissue than regular x-rays, this seemed like a good idea.

Results of the scan will provide a base­line for my health going for­ward. If there were any hotspots of fast- growing can­cer­ous tissue cells in my sys­tem, the test would show them.

My husband accompanied me to my appoint­ment …

There are times when I wonder how we got here. There was a time before these days when we were newly married. Not even 30 years of age, we were carefree and filled with the op­ti­mism born of a newlywed couple. The future was an unwritten book, full of world travels, chil­dren playing on vin­tage harlequin tile floors, and growing old together.

That was nearly 15 years ago. I barely recog­nize us now. The love remains – and nothing could change it – but these days are not what we planned, and sometimes I feel much …

Neuropathy has been a feature of my myeloma “experiences” for many years. Even long before I was diag­nosed, I had neu­rop­athy. It mostly affected my hands and feet, but it could affect other areas of my body as well.

It drove me crazy, and from time to time I tried to find out what was causing it. I had no success at all in my quest. I even once went as far as insisting that I see a neurologist. He did some tests to rule out certain con­di­tions, but he didn’t give …

“What are you going to do next?”

It’s rare that a slogan printed on a hat makes me pause, but reading this quote in a gift shop at Disneyland made me think.

My wife and I joined our oldest son and our three adorable grand­children for three days at the "happiest place on earth," and it was amazing. Seeing this magical world again through the eyes of our grand­children was heart-warming beyond description. As a multiple myeloma patient four years past diag­nosis, the trip was even more special.

Feeling so happy, and …

With my initial diag­nosis of multiple myeloma 14 years in the past, I am an outlier under any definition of the word. And the farther out I am from that initial diag­nosis, the more I baffle my general oncologist, who has been with me since the start, and my myeloma specialist who I see every quarter.

There are many factors that make for this baffling situation.

First, I am 14 years post diag­nosis, a chronological benchmark most myeloma patients never reach.

Second, back in the earliest days, I had a …