By now, we are getting to see that we have some very special people in our myeloma community – outstanding people who show by their own example how we can enrich our own lives, and they show that what our lives may lack in longevity, they certainly can gain in depth. Louis Rukeyser has been the latest famous myeloma patient to make news. The popular business reporter and TV superstar battled back problems long before the official diagnosis of the disease in 2004, and after that point, he lived another two years. So many of the “Sketches” are about those famous and admired people who have had this disease, and although many have died, some are still living and living well. This makes me feel that myeloma patients are among the elite, we are in a special club with Geraldine Ferraro, Francesca Thompson, Lenny Zakim, Ira Wolmer and his wife, and Larry Miller. I have many more examples, and this writing is kind of a mid-way pause in the profiles. It’s a time to collect some thoughts, and share with you some of the complimentary treatment that I have pursued over the years – carrying me to the 10^th year mark since my diagnosis in 1996. I am never very good at keeping secrets.

That is why calling this “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” may not be the best title. I always tell – first and foremost my doctors. But when I started out with myeloma, alternative therapies were not really part of the core curriculum in medical school. Doctors were lacking in knowledge about vitamins and supplements. Lenny Zakim tried to change that, and more and more hospitals now have programs that even are performing clinical trials on some   of these non-traditional approaches – acupuncture, vitamins, herbs, touch, visualization, massage. So we are getting there rather than being left out in the cold. But still a lot of these complimentary treatments come to us from other patients and the success stories are anecdotal – they may work for a few, but how many can really be affected positively, and will you be one of them?

Actually, those same questions can arise for traditionally developed medications, and genetic testing is now being done to help classify patients who will benefit the most from a particular treatment. These are exciting times. In the meantime, I have tried to help matters along, and earlier in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Part I,” I wrote about taking bovine tracheal cartilage – my cow pills. I don’t know if they are working, but since taking them, the m-protein has been relatively low and stable – of course, there is some high-dose steroid and revlimid involved, too, but the cow pills do not seem to get in the way, and they may very well be working positively because they are an immune system booster.