Living

What the…!!! How can I be in remission with ridiculous bone pain?!! What now is happening in my life?! This isn’t my normal rant, but I have to tell you...

Celebrating life’s milestones is part of our DNA. When walking down the card aisle in any drug store, the variety of cards displayed remind us of the important occasions we...

Recently a friend asked me what she should look for in choosing an oncologist. She had a positive biopsy and would need cancer treatment. I began to think about the...

When I do my monthly lab work, I must go to my doctor’s office and they draw blood from my port. The veins in my right arm no longer work...

My brother and I are only 13 months apart. My mother says it was a bit like having twins, but with one a being a bit more advanced. I think...

I’m one in a million. Well…not exactly “one in a million.”  I have polycythemia vera (PV) which is considered a rare cancer.  According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders...

I sometimes think of how Leuk has changed my life. He’s certainly made me appreciate it more. Time spent as a husband, father, and grandfather has become way more important...

I must start off by assuring the reader that when I say humor has healing powers, I do not suggest that humor can heal or cure a body from cancer...

In my thirty-some-odd years of medical adventures, I have met more than my share of characters. Any of you who have spent time in the hospital knows that nurses, doctors...

If you have had two kinds of cancer, you get to worry about two sets of signs that could be something bad. In the part of my mind that worries...

Having cancer taught me so many things about myself and caused me to feel emotions that I didn’t even know were possible. Obviously, there were many negative sides of being...

When I was a kid there was no doubt in my mind there were monsters in the closet, but every time I’d get my mom or dad to look, I’d...

Clinical trials are not as straight forward as people think. I currently don’t qualify for two reasons. First, my myeloma has become sneaky (oligo secretory) and hardly shows up in...

I got a haircut last week. I have so little hair at this point that my wife and kids haven’t even noticed it, two weeks later. Having so little hair...

The purpose of our body’s immune system is to protect us against disease and infection. It does this by defending us from foreign substances such as bacteria, viruses, allergens, and...

Do you ever find yourself lying in bed late at night, staring at the ceiling, and saying out loud, “WTF? I have leukemia?” (By the way, that stands for What...

One of the questions many ask when they are diagnosed with multiple myeloma or any blood cancer is if they are able to move about as they once did. Multiple...

Getting treated for acute myeloid leukemia is like being on a rollercoaster. You get a round of chemotherapy and your blood counts go down. You stay in the hospital while...

Clothes. No one thinks much about them, especially when you are told you have cancer. Why would you? The first thing that pops into your mind when a doctor says...

I’m not going to lie. I really enjoy talking about myself. I think it’s partly middle child syndrome and partly being human and inherently selfish and wanting to self-promote. And I am 100%...