I am just like you. I have a loving family, a career, and many hobbies that keep me busy. However, I also have something that you may just be finding out about yourself, you have cancer. Your visit here might be to look for hope, maybe inspiration to not give up, or how to cope with an unknown life after diagnosis. Either way, I hope you find my personal story and future posts helpful in some small way, perhaps you will share this site with your family or someone else going through our struggles.
My name is Brad Hanson and I have Multiple Myeloma, but my cancer has not gone active, yet. Multiple Myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells and is in the Lymphoma family of blood cancers. It affects the immune systems by cloning malformed cancerous plasma cells, crowding out healthy white blood cells preventing their ability to attack viruses in the body. The bi-product of Myeloma are holes in your bones caused by cancerous Myeloma cells telling your healthy cells to break down bone tissue, a process called resorption. As the cancer leaves an area, what remains are hollowed out holes in the bones. This is the reason so many Myeloma patients suffer bone fractures or disk compression in their back.
we all struggle to understand, cope, and overcome the feelings of loneliness and helplessness
Your story is completely different, even if you have the same diagnosis as I do. But we all struggle to understand, cope, and overcome the feelings of loneliness and helplessness. Loneliness? Yes, even if you know people with the same disease as you, they do not live with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even your family does not experience the same thing as you. You are lonely amongst other people. These are times when your mind gets the best of you, anger, worry, and defeatism creep out from the depths of your mind to make you believe that all is lost, no-one can help you. But not all is lost.
My faith in Jesus Christ is why I can get up every day and face the unknown of my cancer. I know He is in charge of what happens in my body so no amount of worry or angst about my diagnosis will tangibly change anything in my body or mind. Stressing about what could happen, the things you may never do, or the places you may never go is out of your control and only leads you to the darkest of places, depression. I have been there. For those of you who do not have a faith in Jesus Christ, know that the aim of this blog is not to convert you to Christianity, but to show you how my faith strengthens me each day, preparing me for the eventuality of beginning treatment. I work in high tech and am passionate about digging into the technical details of my disease, much to the chagrin of my wife. This blog will be a mix of technical details about Myeloma and the latest treatment news, my journey on the way to possible treatment, and inspirational stories designed to help you live your best life with cancer. Enjoy!