Rich VEGE radio interview with Gary Harris on Health and Myeloma - 052224

Richard Armstrong, a guest on the Healthy Healing Show, shares his personal journey with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer that affects plasma cells in the bone marrow. He emphasizes the importance of early detection and diagnosis, urging everyone to get annual health screenings and blood work. Richard's own diagnosis came after months of feeling unwell and delaying treatment due to fear of hospitals during the height of the COVID pandemic. He was diagnosed in critical condition with acute kidney failure, but with treatment, he is now in remission. Richard highlights the need for the best possible treatment from a specialist and discusses the high level of myeloma he had at diagnosis. Despite his ongoing kidney disease, Richard leads an active life and wants to raise awareness about the importance of seeking medical care and not self-diagnosing. Welcome to the Healthy Healing Show. This is Gary Harris and I'm your host. Today I have a special guest. His name is Richard Armstrong and he's going to share a fascinating and inspiring show with us today. He's going to share his story as we dive into the topic of multiple myeloma, which is a type of cancer that affects the plasma cells in the blue marrow and he's going to tell you more about that. He's a person I happen to know from college. We went to Lincoln University together. He's a bravely battled this disease and who is now in remission. He's going to share his personal journey. Welcome to the show, Richard Armstrong. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Gary. It's wonderful to connect. I will say that I don't know about the brave part. If you want to live, you kind of do what you have to do. The bravery part is a little bit overrated. I want to live. With all of that said, one of the reasons why I share my story is because I literally almost died from some pretty common mistakes that people make and not just pertaining to multiple myeloma, but just in general mistakes that people make that cause late diagnosis. I share my story, but I always start off with saying, and I probably emphasize this a million times, is that I encourage everyone to get their annual health screening including blood work. Get that. If there's no other takeaway from this, please get your annual physicals with blood work because not just multiple myeloma, but diabetes, high blood pressure, high glucose, all of these diseases can be caught early and have treatment so that you can be cured or either at least treated such that you have a higher quality of life and an extended life. Before I even get to my story, I want to emphasize that because that's the biggest takeaway out of all of this. With that said, I was diagnosed in May of 2021 with multiple myeloma. Long story short, I literally was hours from dying. I did not realize how sick I was. I was feeling poorly. I had been feeling poorly for a bunch of months. I'll talk about those symptoms. Basically, what happened was I did what a lot of people do, which is delay getting my treatment. Part of it was it was a perfect storm, if you will say, that was the height of COVID. It was the height of the pandemic. I was definitely afraid of going to hospitals. A lot of doctors had stopped practicing. It was very hard to get medical care during that specific period. I was feeling terrible, just really unwell. I ended up being diagnosed in the emergency room after having a blood test done. At diagnosis, this still blows me away. At diagnosis, I was in acute kidney failure. My kidney function was like 9% and dropping like a rock. Literally, I had hours left before I would have been on permanent dialysis. Probably a day or maybe a little more than a day and I would have been dead. I was treated in critical condition in the emergency room for eight days. I was in the emergency room because there were no beds because of COVID. For two and a half days, I was in an emergency room triage. They finally moved me upstairs after two and a half days and I was in the hospital for eight days. I told them to save my life. To give you an example of why I emphasize early detection and early diagnosis is because when I was diagnosed, I literally had such an extraordinarily high level of myeloma that it is amazing that I did not die. It's amazing that I lived to tell my story. The kind of myeloma that I have is kappa light chain myeloma. It's measured by this test called the light chain test. I remember the first time I went with the oncologist in the hospital. I knew what multiple myeloma was. I did not know the symptoms. When I was in the emergency room even, when they broke the news to me and said, Mr. Armstrong, we think that you have multiple myeloma. We're like 99% sure but we have to do a bone marrow biopsy to confirm it. Do you know what that is? I told them. I said, yes, I do. I've heard of multiple myeloma. I know it's a cancer of the blood system. They were happy that I wasn't upset swinging on them and crying. I was pretty calm about it. They kind of said, oh, okay, well, great. He knows and sort of went away. Ended up in the hospital. They were treating my kidneys. They were trying to get my kidneys restarted, get my kidney function restored and trying to get them to a place where literally I would not have to be on dialysis. They did a great job with that. But back to the myeloma, the level of myeloma when I was diagnosed was extraordinary. And so this light chain test, which measures sort of the activity of my particular disease and a lot of people that have light chain myeloma, the normal level is between 3 and 19 on the test, 3 and 19. My level of myeloma at diagnosis was over 43,000. Wow. Yes. And, you know, when the oncologist explained this to me upon his first visit in the hospital, I was blown away and I was really shocked because I'm sitting there and, you know, if you can imagine, like 43,000 on that test was way up here. And, you know, the 3 and 19 looked like this. And I was just thinking to myself, like, I don't think I'm going to make it. I don't think I'm going to make it. You know, just by virtue of some incredible treatment. And, again, I emphasize that there are some diseases where maybe you can have alternative treatment. I'm pretty emphatic that multiple myeloma is not one of those. You would do best if you avail yourself to the best treatment from a multiple myeloma specialist that you can possibly get and as soon as you can because it is a treatable disease. And with treatment, there are people that, you know, are living decades with this disease. And if you pass me in the street, you would have no idea that I have this disease. You would have no idea that I'm a kidney failure. I mean, I just, you know, I walk like five to seven miles every day. And, you know, if you pass me in public, I'd be wearing a mask because I have a sort of an immune compromise that I have to be protective of. But other than that, you would say, hey, you look great. You look well. And so I mention that because, again, it is very, very important to get the right kind of treatment. And so I share my story because, again, I delayed my treatment. I delayed my diagnosis actually, you know, because I had gone like eight years without getting an annual physical with blood work, you know. And literally the symptoms before I was diagnosed just kept sort of cascading. And, you know, I was getting tired. I was having bone pain, terrible bone pain. And actually getting spasms in my neck to the point where it was difficult to swallow. I'd be laying in bed. And then I started having symptoms that where I could not hold my urine. And when I did have to go, it would be very small amount. And I kind of have to back up a little bit and say that it's easy to say, like, oh, man, you know, this is preposterous. Like, what were you doing? And that's a valid question and a fair question. Thirty years ago, I was rear-ended in an automobile accident. And I literally was in a body cast and I had some pretty serious spinal injuries. And so fast forward 30 years later, I'm having these pain. I'm having these problems with my back. And I'm thinking like, okay, well, darn, you know, I'm damn near 60. And I'm darn near 60. And, you know, 30 years after really having a severe back injury, maybe this is what I'm supposed to feel like. And so, you know, I share my story because, you know, self-diagnosis, that's a bad thing. You know, if you're not feeling well, you know, seek care from a competent, you know, provider. Like, this is very, very important. I did not do that. It almost cost me my life. Again, you know, delayed, you know, diagnosis. And it's crazy because, you know, I had symptoms of anemia. But I didn't recognize it. I was getting out of breath, like the least little bit sick. And I remember when it first kind of hit me, my brother-in-law and I, we had a snowstorm. And it was, I guess, maybe December or something like that. And, you know, we were out shoveling. And I took like two shovels full of snow. And I told my brother-in-law, I'm like, hey, listen, I got to sit down. Like, I'm so winded. Now, this is unlikely because I'm a person who's always been really, really fit and in shape. And so, you know, again, I'm having this out of breath. I'm having this terrible pain in my back and in my neck. And then, you know, these kidney symptoms, which I did not know that they were kidney symptoms. And, you know, all of this was, you know, me kind of self-diagnosing myself, thinking, oh, I'm going to be okay. You know, and this literally almost cost me my life. So this is why I share my story. Again, what's amazing is that, and just even on the kidney issue, one of the things that I did not realize is that kidneys are amazingly resilient organs. And you can be at a level of kidney dysfunction that is very, very high before your kidneys sort of send you that message. Like, hey, you know, we're not good and you need to do something. Pretty much by the time you get those kidney symptoms, you're in a whole heap of trouble. And so, for me, I was able to recover some of my kidney function, but I'm going to be living with chronic kidney disease for the rest of my life. And, you know, that, you know, in a way, I'm glad to be alive. You know, it was sort of a wait and see in terms of how much kidney function was going to be recovered. You know, I've gotten to 37%. That's pretty much about as high as I'm going to go. And so as you age, you know, your kidney function drops. And so, you know, I've got to kind of keep the myeloma at bay and I've got to do things to preserve my kidney function. You know, I'm a very compliant patient and I have to limit potassium and phosphorus. And, you know, there's different things that I have to do to optimize my life as a myeloma patient and overcome these challenges. And so my doctor will tell you that I do this. And, you know, I'm really fortunate that I have great care. So I want to kind of talk about how important it is not just for diagnosis. Hopefully we get diagnosed. And one of the problems with myeloma, and especially in the African-American community, is that we do not get timely diagnosis. We do not often get good proper treatment. And both of those, yeah, and both of those really affect our outcome. When we get those, we tend to do better than all other, you know, ethnicities. And so it's pretty extraordinary when you know that. And so this is part of my mission as well is because, you know, right now I'm ending a two-year clinical trial. And it's interesting because upon my first meeting with my oncologist, you know, my hematology oncologist, you know, he asked me, hey, you know, would you be willing to go on a clinical trial? And at that point I had no idea about any of this. And so I told him, I said, listen, you know, I just want to live. Do what you have to do. And so I'm really, really fortunate that I have one of the top myeloma, you know, doctors in the world, on the planet. And actually the group of doctors, there's about six doctors that all they do at University of Penn is multiple myeloma treatment and research. And so they are fantastic. They're on the cutting edge. And so it's really amazing that, you know, from that level of 43,000, as they gave me treatment, as they started the treatment on the myeloma because they had to get that lower as well to save my kidneys, within like six months my level had gone down to like normal levels of myeloma in my system. And so I've been able to hold my remission for, you know, three years, the first year being in what they call induction, which is the primary therapy to get you down as low as you can get. And then I've been on a two-year clinical trial for maintenance. And so, you know, I say that treatment is so important because it truly is. And one of the things that really amazes me, and I didn't know this, but I had no idea how extraordinary my care was. I mean, I knew that the results were amazing, right? Because, you know, 43,000, I'm thinking like, I'm not going to make it. There's no way in the world that, you know, I'm going to get down to 319. Six months with this treatment and I was there. And it's interesting because I had literally a conference last night with the International Myeloma Foundation, whom I'm affiliated with, and one of the doctors was talking about how, you know, the accepted therapy now is what's called a triplet combination. And so that's three drugs that don't give you an induction to try to get your levels down. And, you know, maybe on the outside, you know, four drugs. Well, I have to say my care was so extraordinary that my doctor literally prescribed a quint therapy. I had five drugs, right? And the drugs were so well-timed and so well-administered that they took into consideration my level of kidney dysfunction and also, too, were so effective, but I literally did not have a whole heck of a lot of side effects. And so, you know, I sort of laughed because, you know, people might say, well, oh, yeah, you know, I'm getting treated with two drugs. You know, if they're getting treatment, I'm getting treated with the triplet. And I'm saying to myself, well, you know, this is great. I'm glad you're getting treatment. But I realized that, you know, there are some really, really cutting-edge, you know, therapies that are really moving the envelope for disease survival and also quality of life forward. And so, you know, treatment is a huge thing. You know, you'll see, if you go on the Web, you have to understand, you know, who to trust. You know, I trust the International Myeloma Foundation, myeloma.org, HealthTreatMyeloma, you know, healthtreat.org slash myeloma. These are great sites that you can trust. There are people out there that will say, oh, you know, alternative treatment and, you know, and I'm going to tell you right now, I am kind of, I think my lucky star is that I was diagnosed in the emergency room. Because had I not been diagnosed in the emergency room, I might have gone to some site that said, oh, you know, and you could do this and you could do that and you'll be fine. I'm going to tell you, Gary, there is no way in the world. My kidney function was dropping like a rock. I was in acute kidney failure. The only thing that was going to save me was A, plasma oresis, which is basically they put a catheter in your neck and they circulate the blood through a machine and it takes out all of the bad proteins that are clogging your kidneys. And I needed that. I needed two rounds of that to save my kidneys. If I did not have that, I would have died, period. There's no alternative treatment for that. So, again, you know, that and also because I had such a high level of myeloma, they needed to get that level of activity down, not just to save my bones, but also, too, to save my kidneys. Because as long as the disease is active, it's going to produce these proteins that your kidneys try to filter out and it clogs them. Okay. Yeah, Rich, this story is compelling. You know, this is great. And we're going to take a break. Quick break. And we'll come back once we talk about possible family history and more of the story about some of the treatment and some of the challenges you felt you dealt with during the treatment. So we'll be right back. You're listening to the Health and Healing Show on BGRadio.com. You deserve the best because you're worth it. Abstinence use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at StartWithHope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. I'm a pretty great multitasker. I can wash dishes and do laundry. I can roller skate while walking my dogs. I can even order lunch while doing my homework. But I can't use my phone while driving. A distracted driver is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. So when it comes to driving, please, don't be a multitasker. Don't drive distracted. A message brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Project Yellow Light, and the Ad Council. Welcome back to the show. We're speaking with Richard Armstrong, who is currently in remission of multiple myeloma, which is a bone disease that affects roughly mainly African Americans. And he's here to share his story and talk about his treatment. And he's an advocate for the International Multiple Myeloma Foundation. So, Richard, just talk about, you mentioned that you weren't feeling well and how your health just started to decline. Do you know, is there a family history of multiple myeloma that you know of? Well, so, before I answer that question, I want to kind of address the fact that I was feeling unwell. So, like I said, I was having a lot of pain. And what was crazy is I thought, you know, because it started with my back, I actually thought to go to a chiropractor. And I did go to a chiropractor. And as it turns out, so I should say, I went to a chiropractor. And the chiropractor wisely said, oh, you know, I don't really want to give you an adjustment. I don't. I don't feel great about it. And that was very fortunate. And then I actually had searched for an osteopath because I thought, okay, well, you know, I'll go to an osteopath and maybe he'll give me an adjustment. And so I actually found an osteopath who was practicing at the time. And I went to him, and he was not my doctor. I couldn't get my doctor. And, you know, the osteopath said, hey, well, you know, I'm a family doctor. I haven't done adjustments. I really don't do adjustments. And he said, but, you know, if you want to become my patient, I'll accept you. You know, the first thing we'll do is get some blood work. And so I said, you know, no, that's okay. That's okay. Right? And, again, like I said, this is boneheaded on a couple of accounts. It really delayed my diagnosis by probably about two months. And had I gotten an adjustment, the part that I did not mention is that I had a ton of spinal lesions, and that's what caused my pain. What multiple myeloma will do is it will create spinal lesions in your bones. And sometimes, like, these lesions, not only are they painful, but they can actually literally destroy your bones. And so there are people that become debilitated, you know, with spinal fractures. And, again, why I emphasize this early detection and early diagnosis is because I know a lot of people that, and most people are diagnosed with active myeloma, and it's because something bad happens, right? You know, you have these terrible symptoms. Or, you know, you might be lifting a box, and, you know, you feel like something snapped in your back. And then you go to the doctor, and the doctor says, well, oh, you know, I got bad news for you. You have a spinal fracture. I got worse news for you. You have multiple myeloma or leukemia. Or, you know, certain other, you know, in-stage cancers will create that circumstance as well. You know, so I emphasize that because, you know, again, early diagnosis, early treatment is so critical. You know, I ended up going to the pain clinic after it just got unbearable. I wanted to jump out a window. The pain was so bad. I went to the pain clinic, and the pain clinic, they took imaging, and they found spinal lesions. And, again, you know, when they said, hey, you know, Mr. Armstrong, you know, we see these spinal lesions, and, you know, we're kind of not liking what we see. We want to send you for, you know, another set of imaging with contrast. And they did this. And so, you know, when that came back, they were pretty much like, okay, you know what, we want to send you for some chest and abdominal imaging. It plays fine, pretty much plays fine to cancer. They had suspected that I had cancer, but they did not know it was a blood cancer. They thought maybe it was, you know, possibly cancer that had, you know, mis-tasticized or whatever. And because of that, and, again, they said, okay, you know, we're going to schedule this imaging for you. At the same time, I was due to get blood work drawn. It was the height of the pandemic. I could not just simply go get my blood work drawn like normally. I had to schedule it. So I decided, okay, well, I'm going to schedule this blood work the same day that I'm going to get this play fine to cancer imaging. Got the blood work done that morning and was headed to get the imaging, the play fine to cancer. My primary doctor calls me frantically and says, Rich, you have got to go to the hospital like right now. I'm like, well, but I'm headed to get the imaging done. No, you've got to go to the hospital. I get to the hospital emergency room and it is a zoo. I mean, there's people coughing and hacking, you know, it's full of COVID patients. This is my worst nightmare. This is what I've been trying to avoid for months. And, you know, I get there and they asked me, hey, why are you here? And I said, well, you know, I haven't been feeling well. I've been feeling terrible as a matter of fact. You know, I just had some blood work done. And, you know, my doctor called me. And, of course, they're sort of looking at me and rolling their eyes because, you know, there's COVID patients. It's a madhouse. And then when they pulled up my chart and saw the numbers, they were like, you know, we've got to come back. Like they brought me back immediately into the triage. You know, they're starting IVs. And, I mean, you could just see the panic look on their face. So, yes. And so that's, you know, the part that I didn't say from the beginning. And this is why, you know, like I said, I'm very fortunate to be here. You know, I almost blew it. And there are some people that they blow it. You know, I joke with people and I say, like, you know, there's a show called Dr. G, Medical Examiner. And it's crazy how, you know, everyday people, how they'll die from little things like tooth infections that turn into sepsis. You know, just craziness. And, you know, I could have been that person. I probably would have died and they would have said, hey, you died from kidney failure and never even knew that I had multiple myeloma. And so, you know, there's all of that. You know, there's that part of my story. But to answer your question about family history, and so there is no family history of multiple myeloma that I know of. And often there is not a family history of myeloma. It's one of those diseases that it's very difficult to predict the origin or the genesis. You know, there's a study in Iceland where they've taken a large majority of the population in Iceland and tried to, you know, track their history and see if there is a genetic basis to multiple myeloma. And so it's a study called EyeStop in there. And it's a very interesting study. The results will be very interesting to see. But, you know, there's not a whole lot of correlation. There really isn't. And, you know, I think that's, you know, sort of, you know, one of the things that there's some recommendations out there that if you do have a myeloma that, you know, people who are like, you know, your very close relatives, you know, should kind of, you know, think about, you know, getting tested and just, you know, definitely, you know, being aware of that. And so, you know, it really is important. And again, so I didn't say, and I started to say this, but how so many people get diagnosed is by accident. And they get diagnosed with very, very high levels of active myeloma. And this really complicates their treatment. This complicates their quality of life. I know people that have multiple spinal fractures, have rods that stabilize their spine, and they're in just, you know, tremendous pain and discomfort. And, you know, had they been diagnosed earlier before the myeloma ravaged their bodies, you know, they could get treatment and they could live well. And so this is, you know, like I said, I almost died. I was really fortunate that, you know, I did have spinal fractures because I'm really active. But I did end up having some spinal issues and had to have spinal surgery. And so, yeah, and so, again, you look at me and you think, like, oh, man, you know, he looks great. And that's fortunate and that's knock on wood. A lot of multiple myeloma patients are very fortunate that they look great, that they're doing well. Because of really good treatment and having access and seeking good treatment, it is possible. But it is a disease that it's insidious. And it's treatable, but it's largely inturable. You know, it tends to come back. And, you know, right now there are a lot of new drugs, you know, called novel drugs and novel treatments that are actually really helping extend the lifespan of people with multiple myeloma. You know, 20, 30 years ago if you had myeloma and definitely longer than that, you know, if you lived five years and it was two good years, you were lucky. Now people are living decades. And, like I said, you know, they're walking among us like me and, you know, you would have no idea that they're, you know, have that challenge. And so, you know, again, if it's detected through blood work, I know people that have had their myeloma detected through blood work, where it's not even at an active stage, where it's at what's called a smoldering stage, where it's not creating damage, but it is detectable through blood tests, you can monitor it. And if it does become active, you can treat it before there's kidney damage, before there's bone damage. So that's the optimal circumstance. And to me, that's why I emphasize this, you know, having the early detection, having the early treatment. But it starts with, you know, doing your annual physicals with blood work. Because, again, there are so many people and so many diseases that can, you know, incipient conditions that can be prevented or reversed or treated, you know, before it becomes just debilitating. I'll tell you really quickly, so case story, not just mine, but I can tell you there's a guy that I'm really close, great friends with, that how he was diagnosed was he was out at the beach each day with his son, and they were swimming, and he got hit with a wave, and his neck hurt. And so, you know, just kept bothering him. He goes to the doctor, and the doctor was like, hey, you got a fracture in your neck. And, again, the worst news is, you know, you've got multiple myeloma, you know. So I know a lot of people, you know, they'll get in a car accident, and, you know, it'll be like, oh, well, darn, you know, you've got a, you know, spinal lesions. And, you know, the worst part about that is, you know, you've got spinal lesions from multiple myeloma, you know. So what I'm trying to influence is people getting early treatment, you know, getting early detection. I can tell you stories where, you know, people have come to me and said, you know, I've gone to my doctor two years, three years, and I've had back pain. I've had all these pains. And the doctor's like, oh, you know, you know, kind of blowing them off and, you know, you know, we'll take, you know, take some Tylenol. And by the time they do get diagnosed, they're at a very, very advanced condition. And, again, you know, this advanced condition is something that's really, really sort of, I don't want to say near and dear to my heart, but it's something that really gets me going. Because even before I was diagnosed, so I'm in a ton of pain, right. I mean, I may jump out a window to make it stop pain. And so, you know, I'm taking NSAIDs, you know, just not going crazy, but just trying to take NSAIDs just so that I can lay down and be comfortable so I can actually sleep, right, so I can not feel like I want to just die to make it all stop. If you have kidney problems, that's the worst thing you can do, right, even to follow this up. You know, so, again, I was telling you about the imaging that I had at the pain clinic. And so they did the first imaging without contrast. They saw some stuff. They did a second round of imaging with contrast. If you have kidney issues, contrast is not what you want to do. And so, again, if you're aware of these maladies, you know, you can do preventative measures instead of doing those things that will really, really, you know, adversely impact your condition. And so, again, this is why I say, you know, my story is really important because, you know, there's a lot of things that went wrong and it could have ultimately been failed, but there's a lot of things that went right. I mean, I got good treatment. You know, I really am on a great clinical trial and there are some great clinical trials. And, you know, that sort of brings me to an important point because, you know, most people that are knowledgeable have awareness about the history of clinical trials and especially as they apply to, you know, our community, you know, the African-American community. And, you know, a lot of that history is not good. And so, you know, when I was first approached about, you know, the potential of joining this clinical trial, I was really reluctant. But, you know, after I had my induction therapy, you know, I really wasn't on a clinical trial, but, you know, I had pretty much cutting-edge therapy. When I saw the success of that and I saw the care that my doctor gave me and, you know, just how really good he was when he approached me about going on to my clinical trial for maintenance, you know, I agreed immediately because, you know, I'm hoping that this clinical trial will prove to be something that's ultimately not just beneficial for me but for other patients down the line. And so, you know, there's that part of clinical trials that now the administration of clinical trials is much more above board. You know, there's consent. If you ever want to understand all of the details about a clinical trial, you can definitely go on to the, I think it's the FDA website, and, you know, they'll post it. And there's another, I'm trying to remember the other website. I can't remember it right now. But there's ways to validate, you know, clinical trials and make sure that they are above board and that they are, you know, indeed, you know, good things. But ultimately, you know, I felt like a clinical trial, again, would help me but also, too, hopefully the trial that I'm on becomes something that is adopted and helps someone else going forward. Just like, you know, the monoclonal antibody that saved my life, you know, someone did a clinical trial and it worked for them and it became the gold standard. And so, you know, there's something to think about, you know, even in terms of, you know, that aspect of treatment. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you. I mean, I'm so glad you're here. And you're here for a reason because, you know, it's important that you share your story, you know, not just about multiple myeloma and early treatment and diagnosis but other health issues for, you know, people to just go out and deal with something, not just to, you know, push it aside or ignore it and say, okay, I'm going to get better and to, you know, go on, you know, to Google it or go to Instagram, you know, and say, okay, I got a solution. Yeah, you know, there are some great, you know, legitimate doctors who do provide information on social media. However, you do want to go face-to-face, get blood work and be treated and diagnosed. So, yeah, so that's very important. And before we go, can you share those links that you mentioned before, the International Myeloma Foundation and the things that they'll do? Yeah, and so the International Myeloma Foundation is a fantastic organization. You know, they'll send you any you can go on their website and access it, but they'll also send you a ton of information directly to your house pamphlet that explain everything about multiple myeloma, their mission of advocacy. And they actually have a great program called Empower, which is in about, I think, six, seven cities, you know, Tampa, New York, L.A., Detroit. And I'm trying to bring them actually to Philadelphia. And what they do is they go into, you know, undisturbed, you know, communities, African-American communities, and they spread the word about multiple myeloma. And, you know, this is a really important thing. And so, you know, International Myeloma Foundation, you can go to myeloma.org. And it's very simple, myeloma.org. And great site, credible information, amazing organization in terms of advocacy. The other site that – and there are some really good legitimate sites, but I'm just going to focus on two. So another site that I'm aligned with – and I actually do myeloma coaching, right? And so, you know, this is free. But I share my experiences with other patients and, you know, and help them through their treatment, help them through their process. And so I have, you know, I've really been fulfilled and had a chance to fully help other people. And how that sort of came about was after a few months, I sort of realized that, you know, it would be great for me to connect with other people. At first, I was really shy. You know, I didn't know how to connect with other people. But when I saw this, you know, healthtreat.org, you know, myeloma, I said, oh, wow, you know, they have coaches? And so I was able to get connected with a coach who was actually on a very similar clinical trial to mine. And he was a year ahead of me. And so, you know, we just connected immediately. And we still connect, you know, to this day. As a matter of fact, we have a call scheduled for tomorrow, you know, just to catch up and see where, you know, he is and where I am. And because of HealthTreat, I realized not just, you know, the value of information, which healthtreat.org slash myeloma has tremendous information, probably the most resource-rich site that I know of in terms of myeloma. They have what's called Cure Hub, where you can submit your labs. And doctors will actually look at your labs and sort of help you to determine what treatments are possible for you. They have something called Twin Machine, where, again, you submit your labs, and they can cross-match it with people who have similar conditions and sort of kind of figure out, you know, the best way to go based on, you know, mutual outcomes. They have a ton of video libraries, and they have a forum. And then, again, they offer coaching. And so I'm one of those coaches that's available, you know, to consult with myeloma patients and caregivers for free. And, you know, it's healthtreat.org slash myeloma. You know, they're branching out and doing other blood cancers. But healthtreat.org, and then you can go to myeloma. And from there, you'll just see a wealth of links, including, you know, coaching links. And so, you know, some great people on there, great organization. I'm so happy to be aligned with them. And, you know, both International Myeloma Foundation and HealthTreat, you know, just limiting those to those who are just doing fantastic work. And a great place to start if you or anyone that you know is challenged by this disease. That's great. This has been great, Richard. Thank you so much for being on the show and sharing this very important information. So I want to thank you again, and I wish you well on your journey. Of course, we will be in contact, we'll stay in touch. And anyone I can send your way to find out, you know, I'd be happy to do so. You know, just thank you for being a resource and just sharing your story with everyone. Thank you again. Thanks for being here. Yeah, definitely my pleasure. And, you know, I wish everyone, you know, just wellness. And, you know, just remember, quality of life is everything. And so, you know, let's preserve our health and let's, you know, maximize our days. You know, that's what I'm doing. You know, I'm a huge, fat, bitter lemon in terms of multiple myeloma, but I'm making lemonade, you know, from helping other people, finding fulfillment, and actually, you know, living some of my best days. And, you know, I think that's just a tribute to, you know, the care that's possible. You know, I can go from being on the edge of death to actually, like, you know, living a fulfilling life. You know, being able to walk five, seven miles a day. You know, and just, you know, having that state of wellness that really allows me to be productive and not just do things for myself, but to do things for others. So, you know, thanks so much for having me. And like I said, I really, really appreciate it. Hopefully this message gets spread far and wide. You know, annual physicals with blood work. If you don't take anything else from this, please do that. All right. So thank you very much and have wonderful days. Thank you, Richard. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.