It all began on Monday April 26, 2004 at 10:00 am when I went in for a routine annual physical exam. There was nothing atypical about this particular physical. I felt perfectly fine… Two days later I was diagnosed with a monoclonal protein spike, and by May 7, 2004 I learned more about this particular M-protein. That was more than 9 years ago. …
…”You have MGUS,” said the internist. “MGUS,” I mouthed to myself. …
Perhaps this diagnosis is like a “kick in the pants,” a reminder that life is, indeed, not a dress rehearsal. It’s the “now” that counts—the music I am composing now, the people in my life now, the places I am traveling to now, the literature I am reading now and, yes, even the things I am learning about my disease now. The human body is like an inner universe, as much a frontier as our outer universe. I see Dr. Berenson as the captain of this particular exploration and we, his patients, are part of the crew. In an odd way, perhaps it’s the quest itself—the quest for understanding, the quest for cures—that makes life worth living.