It’s the holiday season. Cut through the slick marketing and commer­cial­ism, and it should be a time to give thanks and spend time with friends and family.

For me, living with multiple myeloma makes every day bittersweet. It can be hard to stay positive, especially this time of year. I’ll admit it: thoughts of possibly missing future holidays – and time with those I love – some­times makes it challenging for me to focus on all of the good things.

But that’s the point. There are some good things.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Having cancer has been …

My wife, Pattie, is an amazing caregiver.  Smart and compassionate, her own experiences as a cancer survivor prepared her to intuitively understand what I need and when.

Pattie also has had a lot of practice as a caregiver; she’s been watching over me for over seven years.

I was battling symptoms for years before my multiple myeloma was diag­nosed in April of 2007. The good news was that an MRI finally revealed what a half dozen doctors couldn’t figure out. We finally knew why my hands would shake when I wrote, why my …

Last month, I wrote about undergoing radiation therapy on both hips. I thought this month I would pass along how I’m doing in other ways.

First, the numbers.  My doublet therapy of Pomalyst (pomalidomide; Imnovid) and dexamethasone (Decadron) has now held my M-spike steady for two full months. The problem is that, even though my M-spike hovers around 0.6 g/dL (6 g/L), I get the distinct, painful feeling that lesions are continuing to develop and get worse.

The radiation did make the pain go away on my right hip. However, it …

I relapsed six or seven months ago. That fact was made painfully clear when I broke a rib getting into my wife’s car; several new lesions had weakened the ribs on my right side.

I assumed the acute pain was caused by the fracture. While I’m sure the break contributed to my discomfort, it turns out that one of the lesions was pressing on a nerve that runs along the underside of my rib cage. My medical oncologist immediately consulted with my radiation oncologist. I started radiation therapy the next day.

My pain began to …

Most people avoid doing chores, whether it be washing dishes, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, or walking the dog. But for me, daily tasks are a joy.

I take great pleasure in the simple things. Routine is a welcome respite. I enjoy spending time around the house, chipping away at the “honey do” list – writing my column, or working on my next book with our dog, Finnegan, lying at my feet.

It wasn’t always this way. I dreaded the mundane and repetitive tasks from which there was no escape. But that was before I was diagnosed …

Earlier this month, I admitted something that wasn’t easy for me: I’m refractory to both Revlimid and Velcade.

So what’s the big deal?  There are plenty of other drugs I haven’t tried.

True, my outlook isn’t as dire as it would have been three or four years ago.  I recall attending a pre­sen­ta­tion at the American Society of Hema­tol­ogy’s 2011 annual meeting in San Diego. Pomalyst and Kyprolis weren’t approved yet by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But a panel of international myeloma experts, including the IMF’s Dr. Brian Durie, French hematologist Dr. …

“Inconclusive.”  That’s how my myeloma specialist described my current con­di­tion two weeks ago.

While I initially struggled with this description – because there was no clear-cut solution for it – I slowly came to see the upside of my current situation: It allowed me to not hurry to the next treatment, but rather em­brace every day, no matter how uncertain or painful it may be.

My new specialist at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, came highly recom­mended by several of my contacts at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. I was treated there for the first two years …