Kevin Drum reports that he has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of blood plasma cells, for which he has already started treatment. The news isn’t all bad:
I’m young, I’m not displaying either anemia or kidney problems, and treatments have improved a lot over the past decade. So my short-term prognosis is pretty positive. Treatment involves two to three months of fairly mild chemotherapy, which has already started, followed by a bone marrow transplant. My oncologist thinks I have a very good chance of complete remission.
The longer-term prognosis is less positive, and depends a lot on how treatments improve over the next few years. But I figure there’s not too much point in worrying about that right now. Better to stay focused on the current regimen and see how I respond to that. Wish me well.
I certainly do.
I’ve only met Kevin “IRL” once, at a party in his honor hosted by Matt Yglesias and others maybe nine years ago now, but have been reading since we were both on blogspot and he was calling himself CalPundit. He’s one of the good guys of the blogosphere and a holdover to the days when the medium was more communal.
None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, much less the “longer-term,” but I certainly wish the remission comes soon, the regimen is as painless as possible, and the treatment protocols improve by leaps and bounds before they’re needed again.
