Four years

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 make you feel bad about yourself feel bad about themselves.  

Constructive criticism can be a great form of love.  Constant personal criticism is not.  Dishonesty is inexcusable. 

3.  I talk to my cells every day.  I wake up and talk to my cells.  I do indeed look completely insane doing this, but I need to reassure my cells that we are all fighting the same fight.  I will give them water, feed them, exercise them.  I will give them enough rest.  I will do my job if they will do theirs.  

4. I am open to love from all sources.  I have learned the difference between care and manipulation.  Those who have nothing to gain from my friendship are pure and usually very beautiful humans.  I have connected and reconnected with so many beautiful humans.  My apartment looks like a plant shop.  I have read and learned from The Artist's Way.  I have an enormous supply of my favorite sugar free Swiss Chocolate and sugar free Italian biscotti from the bakery.  Vegetables and flowers from the garden.  Art and inspiration from the Southwest. Cards and emails and phone calls texts and visits.  I have seen the very beautiful side of so many people that I have always known and some new people in my life.  They all have a lot of love in their hearts; some that maybe I didn't see before. 

5. I am grateful as hell for every minute of every day.  I have come close to leaving this world more than once in these past four years.   I am thrilled to see the sun each morning when I wake up.  As my mother says, "be grateful for every day we live on this side of the grass."  That, I promise I do. 

6.  Most people have good advice.  Listen to them.  

7.  Books have saved me.  Books have been my teachers, my friends, my entertainers.  I read a lot, approximately 80-85 books per year.   I have had incredible advice from so many sources.  I have experienced so many others' struggles and joys and experiences.  I have traveled in time, to countries and places that I will never see.  This year I have been to Iran, colonial Malaysia, colonial China, India and the UK countless times.  All from the comfort of my own bed.  

PS - not all books are great.  I do not stick with books that I feel are poorly written, trite or have no promise.  

8. I try each day to push myself in some way, although some days are easier than others.  I was blessed with kind, loving, sweet and wonderful parents.  They made me and my brothers understand that the world was big and we needed to constantly challenge ourselves, otherwise we were squandering the world's resources.  "Push yourself" my father said so often.  When my brothers and I see each other, we still joke that we need to push ourselves.  

9. Don't compare suffering.  My children remind me of this constantly.  Just because you have broken your leg, it does not mean that you know what everyone's broken leg feels like.  Extrapolate.  

10. Give.  There are people my age who will struggle to buy groceries this week because the SNAP program is suspended.  There are people who will struggle to pay their heating bill.  There are people who struggle with a disease or an addiction.  And they might have families that suffer because of this, too. They might be reassured and instructed by research foundation workers whose job it is to spread love and peace and knowledge.  Give what you can in some way to others.  

I have been humbled by life countless times.  It never seems to stop.  I can no longer stand up straight. I struggle to maintain muscle mass.  I have plastic in my jaw placed by a plastic surgeon who pretended he knew what he was doing and didn't.  

But I wake up to a beautiful sunny sky and I feel so damn lucky to be on the right side of the grass.  

And to be so well surrounded. 

Sending love and healing thoughts to you. 

healingmyeloma@gmail.com

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