Concern over rising health care costs has led to some proposals that could be dangerous for cancer patients like myself.
I’ve lived with multiple myeloma, a cancer of cells in the bone marrow for the past six years, ever since it first revealed itself with a terrible headache that sent me to the hospital in 2010.
I suspected it was going to take more than aspirin to treat that headache when they kept me overnight for tests.
“Tom, we have bad news and good news,” my doctor said the following day. “The bad news is that you have an incurable cancer, but the good news is that it’s multiple myeloma.”
You don’t expect to hear the words “cancer” and “good news” in the same sentence, but here I am – still standing six years later, living a relatively normal life.
You name the treatment, I’ve had it – radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, and an array of cutting-edge medications. That’s because multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, takes you on a never-ending roller coaster ride. You’re up, then you’re down. But when you’re down, you’re not out, because of the incredible advances in medicine.
In short, you’ve got to stay a step ahead of the disease.