MM in the Spotlight

This past week I finished reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, the book that sparked enough controversy among orthodox Muslims that it resulted in the Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death in 1989. (Talk about literary criticism!) Although the British government stepped in to provide the author with round-the-clock protection and Rushdie is still with us today, there remains serious tension over freedom of speech in connection with the novel, and its examination of the Muslim faith in connection with British immigration.

Satanic Verses was written in the style of magical realism (a la Gabriel Garcia Márquez' classic, One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967). I loved the free flowing nature of the narrative as it follows the improbable journeys of two protagonists, Gibreel Farishta (a Bollywood superstar) and Saladin Chamcha (a voiceover virtuoso), after they are the sole survivors of a terrorist attack on their jumbo jet.

Nearing the end of the book, I brought it with me to my infusion therapy session Monday, and was taken by surprise with this opening sentence to the final subsection:

Eighteen months after his heart attack, Saladin Chamcha took to the air again in response to the telegraphed news that his father was in the terminal stages of multiple myeloma, a systemic cancer of the bone marrow that was "100 per cent fatal"…

Three months ago I'd never heard of multiple myeloma (MM), and now it's everywhere. While I mused briefly over how closely I needed to be following that particular plot development, you have to shake your head at the creative ways that art can imitate life.

One of the fascinating things about MM is that it's a corner of the cancer world (roughly one per cent of cancer today shows up as multiple myeloma) about which there is a lot of progress being made in how to treat it. What had been "100 per cent fatal" 30 years ago is not the same sure thing today. The stem-cell transplant procedure that I'll have done in July offers real hope of containing the cancer and giving me several more years of good quality living. 

At the very worst it gives me something tangible and constructive to point towards, which is how my oncologists and I are approaching it. In turn, this helps me maintain an up-tempo attitude as I gear up for this summer's transplant. It allows me to be more thoroughly present for the limbo I am floating in right now, where, for the next 10 weeks, I'll be able to engage in regular email traffic, stay current with paperwork, attend concerts, and otherwise come across as relatively normal—even though I have little idea how much boost I'll garner from the transplant procedure. We won't know until we do it.

While none of this changes my overall fate (after all, we all die eventually), it definitely spices up my immediate prospects, and I am thankful for the gift of March through mid-July—this time out of time during which my pain has been manageable and there is ample room to read, reflect, write, and enjoy relationships. Life is good. No matter what happens with the transplant, I get the time I have right now.

While multiple myeloma is commonly abbreviated as "MM" in the medical literature, I laugh whenever I see that designation. Not because it evokes multi-colored chocolate pellets, but because "MM" conjures up Marilyn Monroe for me—just about as different an image from cancer as I could imagine. Life can be funny that way.

• • •

This afternoon I get my dialysis port removed (although I never did dialysis, I had a catheter inserted into my jugular vein to facilitate blood draws and infusion therapy). That semi-permanent installation meant I was able to avoid all manner of needle insertions, but at an increased risk of infection. Now that my body's reaction to chemotherapy has stabilized, the scales have tipped the other way and my oncologist is more worried about infection than speedy infusions. 

As an additional plus, after the catheter is removed Susan and I won't have to be quite so careful in bed, worried about what equipment we might accidentally knock around while cuddling.

To celebrate, this evening we'll attend a reprised performance of 42nd Street, the Broadway musical. Tomorrow, Susan's birthday, we'll drive to Stone Lake WI and spend the day with good friends, Ray & Elsie Martin, helping them open up their cabin for the summer.

Life is good.