Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


My piece on assisted suicide went up today, and just in case there are any readers who think I wrote it as a subtle way of saying that things are going badly with my multiple myeloma, I didn’t. This is something that’s been on my radar for a while, and it was Jerry Brown signing California’s right-to-die bill last year that prompted me to finally write about it.

In fact, my health is pretty amazingly good right now. Even my back has nearly returned to normal—close enough that I’ve started up disc golfing again on weekends. Aside from the normal twinges and squeaks of a 57-year-old body, there’s nothing wrong with me. The myeloma is basically like having high cholesterol: you know there’s some stuff going on inside that’s bad and will eventually cause trouble, but in the meantime it isn’t causing any problems at all.

As for my longer term diagnosis, I don’t know yet. After my last visit with my oncologist I finally requested a new one. I had put this off for a long time just due to laziness, but I finally had enough with her. My first visit with the new doc is tomorrow, and we’ll see how that goes—though I doubt I’ll have any real news for months. In the meantime, I’m buoyed by the rather startling outbreak of new treatments for multiple myeloma that have suddenly come to market. It’s not that they’re a lot better than the current ones, but different people react in surprisingly disparate ways to different treatments. So there’s at least a decent chance that eventually one of these new treatments might turn out to more effective on me than the ones I’ve had so far. We’ll see.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate