Living with Multiple Myeloma

It is still November 1st.  I have decided how I am going to celebrate the fact that I am still alive after my diagnosis four years ago today.   I have decided to start swimming again.   Water soothes and heals me.  It calms me.  Long before I understood that many of us feel soothed in water because of its similarity to our amniotic chapter, I loved swimming.  I actually learned to swim about the same time that I learned to walk.  I remember as a two year old having someone hold my head in their hands as I lay on my back and kicked in the water.  This is how I learned to swim.  I was scared to death, by the way, at that time, but once I learned to swim without assistance, I found a great lifelong love.   My brothers and I swam for our country club as early as they would have us (age 6).  Fueled by frozen Snickers, we swam double sessions every day in a huge pool with the diamonds of July sun dancing on them.  It w...

November 1, 2025.   Four years ago today I was diagnosed with high risk Multiple Myeloma.  Cracked T4.  Seems like such a small problem now that I have had ten other vertebral fractures.   I have had 11 vertebrae crack in the past four years: one due to cancer the other due to a medical error.   I am a different person than I was four years ago.  I am still flawed like most humans, but I am so much happier.  I feel like the person that I was in my early 20s.  Optimistic, positive.  I go to bed feeling happy.  I wake up feeling happy.   For this I feel very lucky.  So what have I learned... 1. All time is borrowed time.   2. Each person in your life gives and takes.  Some give more than they take and the contrary.  Some make you feel positive or happy or inspired.  Some make you feel terrible about yourself because they feel terrible about themselves.    Most of those who ma...