Multiple Myeloma – Blood Cell Cancer
Posted on 23. Oct, 2010 by James Clark in Health, Opinions, Popular Stories
Myeloma is a cancer that affects the blood cells. Those affected are white blood cells which is used to fight infections, red blood cells which carry oxygen to the tissues, and platelets which help form blood clots and control bleeding. Most of our blood cells are developed in the bone marrow. When the Myeloma cells get into the bone marrow, you will feel pain and the bone marrow will not produce any more blood cells because this function is crowded out by the Myeloma cells.
Symptoms for this disease can vary and can be masked by other health problems that may occur. My symptoms were covered by other health problems. I used to work for a department store. I had to take merchandise off of pallets and stock the shelves. When a truck came in, I helped pull the merchandise to other locations in the store so that the merchandise could be worked. After doing this for 8 hours, my back started to hurt a little. Since I only worked on weekends, I had the week to recover my poor back muscles – only to feel back pain again when I worked.
I used to smoke and been smoke free for 6 years. They say it takes around 10 years for the lungs to get back to normal. When I pulled the pallets to the floor, I gasped for breath. Sometimes I could make my destination, other times I had to have someone push while I pulled. I passed this off to my smoking experience and thought I was having the COPD ( Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) refers to a group of lung diseases that block airflow and make it increasingly difficult for you to breathe) syndrome. During the week I had no problems in breathing with the things I did around our home.
In April this year, I decided to let the Department Store job go and try to make a living using the internet. Since I had a hard time physically working, I figured that I would get better, especially with my back which was starting to bother me a lot.
While I was taking care of my wife, my back was in a constant hurt. I just could not figure it out. I had to be careful how I laid in bed, had to get out of bed a certain way, it was especially uncomfortable when I had to help my wife in and out of the bed. Since I had no health insurance, I was determined to wait until I was eligible for our State Insurance which would be in September 2010. July came and my breathing wasn’t right. I would go up and down the stairs, breathing hard – even going to the mail box which is less than 1/4 mile, I would be breathing hard, then having to go up the stairs to the second floor, really put the icing on the cake. Finally, I made a doctors appointment.
What I thought was sore back muscles from working, maybe some pulled muscles, hard breathing that maybe could be a by-product from smoking all those years (35 years), I was expecting muscle relaxers for the back and inhalers for my breathing. I was wrong and ended up in Emergency. Reference my previous article for the happenings of this visit.
I never heard of Multiple Myeloma before. In fact, I don’t know how I picked this up! This disease usually affects people over 65 years of age. Another group that is affected is men. Causes of this disease is unknown. Blood tests said I had the symptoms of it. When I look back, I really had the symptoms even before January 2010 when my back started to ache and my breathing was heavy. It took over 9 months for the Myeloma symptoms to appear properly. I figure that this cancer had a good head start in building and infecting my bone marrow.
We do have this somewhat under control. I won’t know for sure until all my Chemo is done and the disease is in remission. I will always have this disease. I will always have to visit the doctor for testing to make sure it stays in remission.
Here are some informational links that further explains what Multiple Myeloma is:
Multiple Myeloma forums
Google Health – Multiple Myeloma
Lenore Bleifuss
23. Oct, 2010
Great article again, James Clark. Being a nurse, I am familiar with the disease and have taken care of people who had it. All we can do is our best to stay healthy and be informed, as you are.