A bone marrow biopsy will confirm it, but we are 95% sure that you have a blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma. This past week we remembered that it has now been six years since we first heard those words from a very compassionate doctor at the Lethbridge hospital. Six years! The months that followed those were, I think, the most difficult of my life. Heavy grief. Debilitating pain from cancer-crumbled vertebrae and fractured ribs. Long hospitalizations. Future plans dashed. In those first days, everything we read about aggressive myeloma told us that the chance of survival beyond three years was around 65%, beyond five years less than 35%. If someone had guaranteed us 6 years, we definitely would have considered ourselves blessed. And blessed we are. Research into treatments and possibly a cure have burgeoned in those years. I, by God's grace, seem to be riding the front edge of the advancements of that research. After a disappointingly short 30 month remission from my stem...
Brian’s diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma was in May 2018. The initial treatment was a stem cell transplant. After 30 months there was a relapse, followed by chemo, another relapse, new chemo and yet another relapse. In January 2024, the 4th treatment began. Brian currently gets weekly injections of an immunotherapy drug. Sometimes we keep the faith and sometimes we need family and friends around us to keep the faith for us. This blog is about enabling us all to be kept in the faith.