Despite stress and setbacks, and a lot more ex­pense than we had ex­pected, I am in my new home in Julian, California, a small mountain com­munity famous for its apples and daffodils. My wonderful mate Kaitlin has gone back to Tucson to prepare our house for sale, but our old dog, Gus, is keeping me com­pany as I sit and read in front of the wood-burning stove.

Our manu­fac­tured home, turned into an amazing refuge by Kaitlin, is on a hillside, and uphill gets to me pretty quick, but I walk …

It had been almost two months since I stopped treat­ment, and it seemed to be going well. Then I crashed, hard. I woke up in the small hours of the morning feeling miserable, heart flutters, elevated pulse rate, sore all over. It was the same in the morning after a fitful sleep. No appetite, breathless with any movement. Not fun. Like detoxing all over again.

I was better the next day, not 100 per­cent (whatever that is anymore), but reason­ably functional. The crash might have been caused by my pushing a little too hard the evening before, …

As I write this, it’s been six weeks since I stopped my most recent myeloma treat­ment regi­men, the “last ditch” Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib), cyclo­phos­pha­mide (Cytoxan), and dexa­meth­a­sone (CyBorD) ther­apy that was sending my blood pres­sure dangerously high and doubling my pulse rate. I have met with my on­col­ogy team and they are okay with my de­ci­sion to choose qual­ity of life over the in­creas­ing misery of treat­ment.

I should note that my spouse and I agree that this is the right de­ci­sion even though my lambda free light chain marker took a …

I find the Myeloma Beacon patient columns and forum very in­for­ma­tive and use­ful, but they are surprisingly short on what comes with relapse when there are no more realistic treat­ment options. I’m facing that situation now and thought I’d chronicle my journey along this next part of the road in a regular column, in hopes that it will be of use to others.

I am 81 years old, diag­nosed in June 2017, at age 79, when I sneezed and broke two ribs. I went on a reduced-dose …