For one day each week, my children have a special nickname for me. It’s Tyrannosaurus Dex!

I suppose that it is fitting that a wise-guy has wise-guy children!  Here’s how I earned this tongue-in-cheek moniker.

Like many multiple myeloma patients, I have a love / hate relationship with the potent corticosteroid, dexamethasone (Decadron), also called dex for short. I love that dex offers positive health benefits to many of us facing a diagnosis of myeloma. Conversely, I hate that dex is also known to cause a wide array of side effects …

Three months have passed since I left the hospital after my stem cell transplant. 

I am in a quiet and watchful time period, regrouping my energy and my brain cells for the next phase of my life. 

I have been regularly delighted by being able to return to “normal” activities such as shaving and an occasional visit to the barber. While my barber doesn’t have much work to do on my head, he is a phenomenally upbeat guy and entertains me with details of his youth, such as harvesting olives in Sicily. …

I began a new practice after my birthday a few months ago. I filled a green bowl with 52 marbles. Each week I move one marble into a smaller white one. Taking a pause each week to reflect is another way to feel the texture of life – another version of “live one day at a time.”

A picture of this smaller bowl is the avatar that shows up by my comments here on The Myeloma Beacon. It is also the inspiration for the title of my column, “Pat’s Cracked Cup,” explained …

We have a hair dryer at home that cannot be run on its highest heat setting, otherwise it overheats in a few minutes and shuts down.  After that, you cannot turn it on again until it's cooled down sufficiently.

A lot of electronics function this way, as do nuclear plants, steam turbines, and a variety of other devices that tend to break or explode if they get too hot, spin too fast, or build up too much pressure.  In most cases, this helps prevent damage to the device, to nearby people, and …

Each of us has his or her own way of dealing with multiple myeloma and cancer.

I was reminded of this when I read a recent column here at The Myeloma Beacon by Dr. Arnie Goodman.  I hope you all read it.

From following Dr. Goodman’s columns of late, you’d know he hasn’t been in a particularly good way in his personal myeloma battle for some time now.  Right now he’s in a difficult place.

He’s in a position that most all of us are going to face someday where treatment …

This spring, my choir is performing a tribute concert to Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee.  Thus, many of the songs we sing originate in the U.K.  One song by the Beatles, which has a rollicking beat, barbershop in nature, is called ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’

During one of our recent rehearsals, I suddenly realized that the first line of the song...’When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…,’ had already applied to me.  I had already lost my hair, even though I was younger than 64.  Not fully …

It was one heck of a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in the Ozarks back in the spring of 2009. In fact, it was the kind of picture-post-card day that you like to file away in your memory.

But what I had no way of knowing was that a would-be killer, lurking nearby, was ready to ruin my perfectly good day by striking out at me when I least expected it.

Having been out of state for four months of aggressive treatment for multiple myeloma, I was thrilled to be back home for a …