As you can imagine, a person with cancer tends to spend time thinking about their circumstance. As you have witnessed, I go a step further and put many of my thoughts down on "paper" to help me understand my situation and sort it out among the myriad other things that we ALL have to live with. For example: Sometimes I feel like I got off easy with my diagnosis, treatment and ongoing cancer journey. I mean, if I honestly and objectively look at my cancer-life these past 7 years:
Overall, I have had minimal side effects across the board throughout a series of varied chemo and monoclonal antibody treatments. Each step along the way for me (as my Onc team searched for the optimal cocktail to control the advancement of my Multiple Myeloma-MM), came with a list of adverse effects as diametric as constipation or diarrhea. Even to this day, since I am on low-level chemo all the time, I could theoretically be exposed to even more ongoing side effects than most - - - every single month.
Unlike many other forms of cancer whose origins can be traced to external life factors which could have precipitated their condition (too numerous or pervasive to list), MM seems to be born from a cell-dividing fluke. That could be perceived as a negative, but despite that unfortunate origin story, as a result I have had to make no changes to my lifestyle - at all. I basically live my life as I did before and don't really need to avoid or curtail any potential causative medical life factors. Fact is, I didn't really engage in any cancer-causing risk factors before as it was, but I don't need to worry about it now.
After seven+ years of living with Multiple Myeloma, a duration which tends to be longer than most other cancer patients experience, I have had to endure no real significant lasting negative effects; from the initial diagnosis until today. Other than the Chemotherapy-induced Peripheral Neuropathy that I have developed (which is not nearly as painful or problematic as Diabetic Neuropathy), I can't really point to any sustained medical adversity that has become a debilitating part of my life as a result of my MM.
Yes, I have cancer. And yes, it is a medical reality of my life. And yes, as of now it's something I'll have to keep dealing with for the near long-term future. But, if viewed from another perspective, that of how bad it could have been, one could make the case (or at least I can make the case) that I got off easy.
