December 1989. I could never forget that month. The average temperature was just 18 degrees in Connecticut, and that was the coldest December on record. The temperature was a good 10 degrees below “normal,” and if that difference were to be maintained over a long period, those thoughts of global warming would just be iced over memories. A major glacial advance would get underway. We would experience a new ice age!

Almost daily, the temperature hovered near or below zero, and the entire landscape was encased in ice. I was even called to testify about the heinous nature of a murder that was committed during that month, based upon the brutal cold. But through it all, there was warmth in the air, and during that harsh month, Beth Renee Davis and Ira Elliot Wolmer were married on December 16th at Beth Jacob Synagogue in Norwich, Ct.

Beth was an associate in a large New York law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom while Ira was a cardiologist who graduated from Yale University and received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where his own father was a pediatrician.  If any family had a grasp of medicine, it had to have been the Wolmer family, and the love between Ira and Beth was certainly exceptionally strong.



Was it coincidental? Within two weeks, the ice age weather pattern began to melt away, and on New Years Eve, a night veiled in dense, blinding fog, the real warmth got underway. January 1990, the very next month, became one of the warmest Januarys on record. The glacial pattern was history, and something else began to melt away following the Wolmer marriage.



Until then, our knowledge of treating cancer, especially multiple myeloma, seemed to be frozen in time. The treatments involved chemo, or more chemo, and the outcomes were devastating for so many. But just as the Wolmer’s marriage seemed to play a role in melting away the most brutal cold wave of the century, the circumstances of their life together also unlocked some medical mysteries that were frozen away for ages and beyond.



In 1995, only six years after that special December day, 35-year old Dr. Ira Wolmer was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. My own diagnosis occurred a year later, in 1996, and the resources for treatment were very limited. Dr. Wolmer was exceptionally young to be diagnosed with this disease that breaks down the immune system, kidneys and heart, as well as causing painful bone fractures. No cancer is easy, but this is one of the most painful types. Usually, a person reaches 50 or 60 before diagnosis. Dr. Wolmer’s diagnosis came tragically early in his life. During the mid-90s, the median length of survival after diagnosis was just 33 months. The most aggressive form of treatment involved stem cell or bone marrow transplantation. Usually, one’s own stem cells were collected after high dose chemo knocked out as many myeloma cells as possible. Then, the stem cells were reinfused in an attempt to recreate the immune system. Sometimes, marrow or stem cells were infused from a closely matched donor, but the morbidity was always high with this procedure because of rejection problems. One of the foremost centers for such aggressive treatment was at the University of Arkansas under the direction of Dr. Bart Barlogie.  That center has become one of the premier myeloma treatment centers in the country. And in 1995, Dr. Wolmer wanted to seek out the most aggressive treatment possible. So, this New York doctor heads for Arkansas and tries to get his life back.  During then, he had no fewer than three transplants and even tried an experimental vaccine. Unfortunately, nothing had worked for him. But his wife did not give up.