As a former drug and alcohol counselor, I was trained to identify and deal with the “elephant in the living room”  In other words, the painful reality that everyone would talk around but rarely face.  It might be a family member's alcohol or drug use, domestic violence, or incest. 

Denying a horrifying reality isn't anything new.  But I never expected multiple myeloma to make the top ten list! That is, no one ever wants to discuss dying from myeloma.

Well, I want to – no, I need to – talk about …

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 …

Except for three months following my stem cell transplant, I have continuously been on some type of chemotherapy for my multiple myeloma for over five years.  The relentless onslaught has caused a wide variety of side effects, some serious and others inconvenient.

I have been on Revlimid (lenalidomide) since soon after my diagnosis. It depresses my white blood cell counts to the point that I have experienced chronic neutropenia a number of times.  It has also aggravated a form of peripheral neuropathy (tingling in my lower extremities that slowly progressed to …

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 …

Earlier this week, I was talking with three other long-lived multiple myeloma survivors who are all in remission.  The fascinating part was that all four of us got there in different ways.

One had undergone a successful allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplant.  He hasn’t been on maintenance for years.

The second was just finishing the arduous, four-year Total Therapy treatment regimen at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).  He plans not to use maintenance therapy.

The third started treatment at Mayo Clinic for kidney failure, but then went on to …

It has been fourteen months since my autologous stem cell transplant.  Although I’m in remission (Thank God!), several challenging residual issues remain.

I can remember hearing from other transplant recipients in past years, bemoaning the fact that they still weren’t “back to normal” months or more after their stem cell transplants.  I didn’t pay much attention at the time.  But now I think I might understand how they felt.

Like those I have heard from in the past, I am still not fully recovered from my transplant.

I noticed it again last …

There was a full moon Labor Day weekend.  The sky was clear all three nights here in Florida.  The moon’s light was filtered as it passed through the humid late summer’s air, forming a bright halo.

Walking beneath the full moon reminded me of the trying months following my multiple myeloma diagnosis.

Believe it or not, the moon played an important role in my initial recovery five years ago in Wisconsin.  Even though I could barely walk, I will never forget stumbling down to the end of the block and back each …