Living with Multiple Myeloma

Valentines Day was the most important holiday in my house when I was growing up.  There were vases of red roses throughout the house, boxes of chocolate everywhere and my parents' oversized cards as declarations of love to each other on public display.   Valentines day is a celebration of romantic love, to be sure, but we don't always have someone in our lives with whom we can celebrate romantic love.   So today, like any other day, I list the many other types of love that we can feel in our heart.  Even if this is not the romantic love we celebrate on Valentine's Day, there are many loves for which we should be grateful.  Many types that we should seek and nurture.  That for which we should feel honored and grateful.  We should also celebrate love we have for our:  children old friends (and new friends) parents siblings aunts, uncles siblings-in-law in-laws employers cousins the pharmacist the librarian our neighbors pets plants music our hiking ...

The longer one takes chemo, the worse the side effects are.  Seems unfair.  I've learned a few things about reducing chemo nausea that I would like to pass along.   Water. I received advice from another myeloma patient to "hydrate, hydrate, hydrate," especially on chemo days. I always have trouble with this, for some reason.  Water helps flush chemo through one's system. On chemo days, especially, push yourself to drink a lot of water.  Walk. The other advice that I received from the International Myeloma Foundation was to move after getting chemo, so that the chemicals move throughout my body and do not stay 'in one place.'  I take my chemo pills (Revlimid) each morning, so that I have the day to let them circulate while I walk around.  In the past I received my bi-weekly chemo shot (Velcade) in the morning so I had the day to walk thereafter and I always felt pretty good.  My main challenges were headaches and vision problems, until yester...