62 Months...The Beginning

"62 Months" is an odd name for a blog. But for me, it's an inspirational title, and here is why:

On Friday, July 13th, 2012, (yes, Friday the 13th) I was diagnosed with a form of cancer called Multiple Myeloma. According to the Mayo Clinic, Multiple myeloma is a cancer of your plasma cells, a type of white blood cell present in your bone marrow.

I was pretty much asymptomatic in the months prior to the diagnosis. I did, however, experience a significant weight loss that began to concern people around me, in particular my oldest daughter. Without being precise, I'd lost about 50 pounds. I was attributing it to a new job that I'd taken. The new job is very physical, which is new ground for me, having been a Wall Street stockbroker for years.

My daughter persisted in her requests for me to get a physical. I happened upon a walk-in medical practice one afternoon and decided to give my daughter her wish. During the physical, I did mention that I'd lost a lot of weight without dieting. My new doctor was not satisfied with the explanation of why I'd lost the weight, and thankfully she decided to run a complete battery of tests.

Long story short, the tests came back with a couple of red flags, one being something called a "globulin gap." This prompted more specific testing. Those results told my doctor that it was time for me to see a specialist, and I was referred to a wonderful Hematologist/Oncologist. His conclusion was that I had this multiple myeloma. He ordered a bone marrow biopsy to confirm the diagnosis, and that came back positive. My cancer was set at stage I.

So that brings us to "62 months." As word spread about my illness, people naturally began to offer encouragement and information. One kindly gentleman, who shall remain ever nameless, sent me a link to a website ( http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/MultipleMyeloma/OverviewGuide/multiple-myeloma-overview-survival-rates ) I'm sure his intentions were good. But when I opened the link I saw it was a list of survival rates for my type of cancer. Thanks so much!

Well, I looked at Stage I and the median survival rate was listed at 62 months.That's a little over 5 years, if my math is correct. That's not a long time, is it?

I didn't look at this number and think, "OK, I'm dead in 5 years." What I'm thinking right now is, this is a challenge. I'm going to beat this median. I'm going to haunt the world for a lot longer than that. I'm not naive, and I'm not thinking that this is going to be some stroll in the park. My doctor has told me that this disease isn't curable, but it is treatable. I'm going with that.

His plan is to attack this aggressively and get me into remission by December of 2012. When that happens, the next step will be a stem-cell transplant in early 2013.

So that's what we're gonna do. That sounds like an awesome plan to me.

And then I can say, "The hell with 62 months."