Veterans Wage War on Myeloma

Veterans join forces to wage war on a sneaky disease

by Lon Wagner

Bob Brunner and Jerry Walton didn’t know each other until recently, and they have only a couple of things in common. They’re retired from the Navy, and both have the blood disease multiple myeloma.

But in ways big and small, they’ve decided to attack myeloma head-on. Walton and Brunner, with help from the International Myeloma Foundation,  have formed the country’s first Veterans Against Myeloma Chapter to raise awareness of the disease and, they hope, raise funds to combat it.

Neither of them had heard of multiple myeloma when first diagnosed with it, and now they want to make sure other people have.

"The first thing you think is ‘melanoma,’ " Walton said. "Then you start looking it up." When a newly diagnosed person finds out more, there’s little to encourage: myeloma attacks the plasma cells in the bone marrow, reducing the ability to fight disease. With little or no immunity, a person can fall to pneumonia, the flu, a sinus infection or even a common cold.

"Most people with myeloma don’t die of myeloma," Walton said. "They die of some disease they couldn’t fight."

The two men think some veterans may be especially susceptible to myeloma, because research has indicated that environmental exposure to certain chemicals – such as the defoliant Agent Orange used in Korea and Vietnam – could be one of the triggers.

There is no cure, though if treatments work, a person can live with it for years.

It tends to attack older people – the average age for diagnosis is in the early 60s; men more than women; and African Americans more than whites or Asians.

Brunner knows the cancer doesn’t always follow the guidelines. He was 41 when he learned he had it, in January 2003. He was a master chief on the dock landing ship Ashland, and three hours before the ship was to leave for the Persian Gulf, he was admitted to Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

"I went down there, and there was the doc and the captain, and the captain closed the door," Brunner remembered. "Doc said, ‘You got some bad stuff. You either have leukemia or cancer.’ "

The myeloma was at an advanced state. If Brunner had received the anthrax or chicken pox vaccinations he was scheduled for, the live virus in either might have run rampant in his compromised immune system.

Shortly after the diagnosis, he went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and had two stem-cell transplants, procedures that kill some people. Brunner not only survived, but has gotten back to his hobby of distance running. He’s shooting to qualify for the Boston Marathon and recently did a training run every day for 13 weeks.

He has shied away from researching the disease, saying doom and gloom on Web sites might bring him down. He wants to provide an example of hope for those who are newly diagnosed.

"When you go and meet these people who have it, they have no clue what they’re in for," Brunner said. "Give ‘em a little hope; you can make it through."

But he knows multiple myeloma doesn’t go away. It can simmer in the bone marrow for weeks, months or years.

Walton, a retired Navy captain, has lived with the disease for two years. His condition is known as "smoldering" myeloma, a stage in which he knows it is in his marrow but not advanced enough to require treatment.

Like Brunner, Walton has tried to battle the cancer by exercising to keep his strength and stamina up. A former math teacher, Walton has calculated he wants to climb the equivalent of 1,000 feet in elevation every day.

So he goes to the biggest hill around, Mount Trashmore, and trudges up 61 stairsteps at least 25 times.

"You got nothing to think about," Walton said of his climbs, "so I do all the calculations, so I’m not thinking about doing the steps."