Busy, busy, busy...

Wow! To those who will actually check this blog, my apologies for the dearth of words.

On the positive side, it has been for good reason. I've been busy. Not just "busy", but busy like 24/7/365 busy. If I were pretentious and vain, I'd say I've been trying to save lives - which I have been. But to put a finer point on it (and a less dramatic one), I've been engaged in the launch of a new drug to treat an incurable cancer, Multiple Myeloma.

MM is vicious. If you are diagnosed with it, get your things in order.

But...

There's hope.

15 years ago, you'd get 2-4 years. Maybe. And it would not be a pleasant 2-4 years. It would involve chemotherapy, pain, and despair. But since then, there have been significant and amazing advances in the treatment of MM. Now, patients (people/human beings/friends/family) are living much longer and doing so with a quality of life that was undreamed of in 1998.

Last month, after 10 years of research and development and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, another bit of hope arrived in the form of a small capsule. A blue and white pill that will give MM patients the chance to live out their lives with a diagnosis of MM, but without the pain, fear, despair, and hopelessness. No vomiting ten times a day. No hair loss. No feeling like the cure is worse than the disease.

Between this little pill and a couple of other treatments available (plus bone marrow transplant) my friends and the thousands of people I don't know have a chance to live with a disease but have it not kill them. They can possibly live normal lives, doing the things they love.

I met a man on this new drug who has run marathons in all 50 states of the USA, plus twenty more. At age 72. With Multiple Myeloma. Again, on my company's new drug.

His biggest complaint?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

72 years old. With MM. Running marathons.

That's what I've been up to. And I feel really good about it.

Do you forgive me for not being a writer of late?

Thanks.