In the months before my diagnosis (August 2017), I didn't really feel anything different. Oh, I was losing some weight (but I was always glad to shed a pound or ten); I was feeling a tad tired (between kids and work and travelling, why wouldn't I be); I wasn't quite as tan or tawny as usual (though I'm never really more than a shade or two darker than "pasty"); and I had a curiously hoarse voice (not sexy like Brenda Vaccaro, but oddly noticeable) - but I didn't feel so markedly debilitated that I thought I had cancer (who ever does?!).
Then once I was diagnosed, admittedly all of the aforementioned symptoms (and more) became apparent and I was almost allowed to feel "sick," though it still wasn't to the degree that one thinks of when they think of a really sick person - or even more so, a person who is sick with the Big C. Aside from the aforementioned (which are legit issues), I didn't feel bad or sick (pained or incapacitated; I was working at my normal 100% level).
Over the course of my initial treatment and then in the wake of my stem cell transplant, as my numbers started to rebound and my physiology began inching back toward "normal" (whatever normal can be for a person living with Multiple Myeloma - MM), looking back I can honestly say that I don't recall a discernible difference in how I "felt" other than the slow diminishing of my symptoms (and increasing of my weight, strength and color). This is not the voice of denial or selective memory of the bad time that I had, rather I just can't remember a time back then when I felt really bad, bad - sick, sick. Granted, my memory isn't what it used to be, but it works well enough that I would be able to recollect long periods of down-and-out (ie: bedridden), had they been the norm.
The ensuing 6-7 years were marked by monthly trips to the clinic, ongoing various chemo and monoclonal antibody cocktails, and very frequent blood work which was validating that I had gotten better and was staying there (my MM plateau). But still, I wasn't feeling any different; any better from having been worse. I wasn't as young or spry as I had been during my peak Camp Ramah heyday, but who among us are feeling that way anymore (at our age).
And now, that I'm living in my new post-CAR-T era, I still don't feel any different, and I've had an incredible, health-altering medical procedure. When people so graciously and lovingly ask with sincere concern "How am I doing?", I'm almost embarrassed to sheepishly reply, "Fine thanks." I'm not soft-pedaling my disease. I'm not indifferent to their genuine concerns and just blowing them off. I'm not lying to them and myself about how I really feel. And it's not that kind of "fine" that is an all-too-common euphemism for mediocre. I just don't feel any different (kinda never have), and the more that I think about it, I realize that this is a good thing; though a subtle and simple thing. For me medically, this is what my Multiple Myeloma managed feels like -- like nothing, no different, just plain fine, thanks!
