I have multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer. I do not think I should feel proud of that. I am not sure pride and cancer belong in the same sentence. Cancer came without warning. At first, I felt tired. Then I felt worn down. Before long, my body began to lose ground. A long time passed before I understood that something was seriously wrong. In the end, it took the skill of a careful and perceptive primary care doctor to find the problem.
When I learned that I had bone marrow cancer, I did not feel devastated. I felt concerned, but not devastated. Years of medical education had left me with a memory I did not want at that moment, the ability to recall the page in my pathology book that described the disease, the symptoms, and the prognosis. One sentence stood out to me. Life expectancy: three years. Three years.
We all know we are mortal. No one leaves this earth alive. But knowing that in an intellectual sense and being given a number for how long you may have left are two very different things. I sat with that thought. I turned it over in my mind. Then I made a decision, this cancer was worth fighting, and I was going to fight it as well as I could.
It has now been almost eight years since the day of my diagnosis, and I am still in treatment for the same cancer. Eight years. In that time, I have had chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, CAR-T therapy, several rounds of immunotherapy, and now bispecific antibody therapy, which uses my immune system to find and kill cancer cells that remain in my body. The treatments have changed. The cancer has not given up.
These past eight years have not been easy. But they have been full. I have had high points and low points, real progress and real setbacks, times of hope and long stretches of exhaustion. Through all of it, I have had an oncology team that I can only describe as exceptional, men and women who have guided me through some of the hardest physical and emotional seasons of my life.
Multiple myeloma is not curable, not yet. Still, the treatment options available now are very different from what they were when I was diagnosed. My prognosis was bleak then. Today, because of continued research and real progress in treatment, people with this disease can live longer than they once could. What once felt like a death sentence is now something else, a road that can still be uncertain, but a road all the same. I am grateful for that.
Almost eight years of treatment has brought stress, but it has not taken away my hope. Getting through this kind of road takes endurance, resilience, and courage. There is no easy way around that. What I did not expect was what this road would give back to me. It has opened doors I did not know were there and given me a sense of purpose I never went looking for.
I write about cancer and other life-threatening diseases for compassionatevoices.org, as a person living with illness, not as a physician. I write so that others can better understand what it feels like to live with a serious diagnosis and still keep moving forward. I also mentor medical students and have built support networks from scratch. Eight years ago, I would never have pictured myself doing any of this in an examination room.
Here is what I have learned: a diagnosis does not have to destroy your life. It can also lead you toward something more meaningful, something that changes you in ways you never expected. I am not saying suffering is a gift. I do not believe that. What I am saying is that the way we respond to illness can become one of the most shaping experiences of a lifetime.
Eight years ago, a number stopped me in my tracks. Three years. I wrestled with it. I let it sit with me. Then I decided to walk toward something instead of running from it. I did not know what that choice would ask of me, financially or personally. I did not know what it would give back to me either. Now I do.
Having multiple myeloma has asked a great deal of me at times, my physical strength, my patience, and my determination to get back up after hard seasons and begin again. But it has also given me something I could not have earned any other way, a life lived with intention, purpose, and awareness.
Because I became a patient with multiple myeloma, I became a better physician. Because I lived through diagnosis and treatment, I became a better writer, because I had something true to tell readers. And because I learned that time is not guaranteed, I became a better human being.
If you are reading this and you are somewhere on your own hard road, newly diagnosed, worn out from treatment, or wondering if the fight is worth it, I want you to know this, it is worth fighting for. Not because the road gets easy, because it usually does not, but because you have more strength than you may realize right now, and because the life ahead of you is still yours to shape.
A diagnosis tells you about your body. It tells you nothing about your worth, your ability, or how far you can still go.
