All's Well That Ends Well

I thought I would update you all on yesterday's MyelomaUK infoday at Birmingham. As I mentioned previously, Mike had been asked to do the Patient and Carer perspective presentation, but more on that later.

As usual the talks by the experts on current treatments, managing side-effects, future strategies and clinical trials were really useful, but the real joy came from meeting other people who's lives have been touched by Myeloma. There was Winston who has just relapsed after a nine year remission and his lovely wife. We finally met up with Sharon another young sufferer who we first made contact with on the Under 50s site and now have as a friend on Facebook. Sharon is lucky to be alive as she had pneumonia and then an infection that attacked her heart just after her SCT. There was a lady called Karen who came to speak to us after Mike's speech who was looking forward to her holiday now she was the other side of treatment and her SCT.



The pair of us with Sharon

Talking of Mike's speech I better let you all know how it went. Mike decided that the best option was to be as positive as possible, just in case there were newly diagnosed patients in the audience. You don't want them too scared by horror stories of infections and near death experiences, do you? The speech was very well accepted with plenty of laughter in the right places and as Dr SB was one of the speakers, audience participation too, especially as he felt he needed to answer Mike's remark that people shouldn't introduce him to students as "the man who likes to dress up as a woman" , just because he impersonated Tina Turner. 

Once again I was amazed at how positive a lot of people are, despite their diagnosis. I really needed yesterday, it cheered me up no end, despite the fact I've had a sinus infection for over a month and I'm now on 2 high strength antibiotics!