She stirs awake before the alarm sounds, even before the choir of song birds welcomes the day from their crooked perches on the 100-year-old black oak.  Yawning and brushing away the sleep from her eyes, she turns to listen to him.

His breaths are deep and measured. She is grateful that the congestion from this latest round of pneumonia seems to have passed. The hacking coughs that rattle his bones and rob his much-needed rest are absent now.

Still, last night’s sleep came to him in fits and starts. “If it’s not …

My circle of creative-thinking friends once likened my up-and-down battle with multiple myeloma to being subjected to a series of wildly unpredictable storms.

I suppose that it’s true.

Using my friends’ template, I do sometimes find myself immersed in a rather serious medical situation akin to a violent assault of lightning, thunder, and torrential rains. At other times, I put up with a cold or infection that clings to me like a fog and nags me like an inconvenient drizzle.

Thankfully, there are stretches when I’m feeling good and the skies remain …

“So, how much time are they giving you?” an old friend from college asked me with great concern in his voice.

We had lost touch for several years, and he had only recently learned of my ongoing battle with multiple myeloma.

Ah, the classic ‘how much time?’ question.

I replied. “My doctors have assured me, with a great deal of certainty, that I will have no more than (dramatic pause)... no more than twenty-four hours a day to live my life. Only twenty-four hours a day! Why me?”

“Oh, man, I’m so …

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 …

Last week, I had the pleasure of taking a quick jaunt from my home in the rural Ozarks of southwest Missouri to the big city of San Francisco.

As an enthusiastic traveler before my diagnosis of multiple myeloma, I had always enjoyed venturing out to far locales by rail, sail, wing, or wandering highway.

Having flown several times since my furious tango with myeloma began in November of 2008, I know well the importance of heeding my doctor’s (and my wife’s) admonition to be ‘extra careful’ during the excursions.

The outbound portion …

I have to admit that I am not exactly an expert on the science of multiple myeloma.

One area that I do have some expertise in, however, is what I have ‘felt’ during my intense, four-year battle royale waged between medical science, myeloma, and me.

As a natural born daydreamer, I recently imagined what it would be like if I could magically send a note back to the newly diagnosed Sean Murray of four years ago. Knowing that I was largely ignorant of multiple myeloma and grossly unaware of what was about …

Four years of ongoing chemotherapy may have made my memory a bit fuzzy at this point, but I don’t exactly recall having scribbled the following onto my bucket-list:

"Get multiple myeloma, say goodbye to life as you know it."

I certainly have no desire to prove my mettle by taking on such a menacing foe. I really do have better things I’d rather do with my life.

I’d much more prefer to run the bases at Yankee Stadium, or hike the Appalachian Trail, or catch a trophy-sized blue marlin off the coastal …