Pod4Cure #2: Myeloma and Parenthood

In this episode of Pod4Cure, we are joined by a member of the All4Cure community to discuss the trials of navigating pregnancy and parenthood amidst cancer treatment. Kristine, a multiple myeloma patient, was diagnosed during her pregnancy over 5 years ago. Now, as a patient in remission, she describes her myeloma journey, experience in motherhood, and how she approaches the topic of cancer with her young child.

Sara Lippert (Top Left), Lauren Zelko (Top Right),

Kristine & Son (Bottom Left), Christine with her family (Bottom Right)

Transcript:

Sara: Hello, and welcome to Pod4Cure, the podcast brought to you by All4Cure discussing health care for patients with myeloma, their caregivers, and everyone in between. My name is Sara.

Lauren: My name is Lauren, I'm the medical records coordinator here at All4Cure.

Sara: And today we are joined by Kristine Beard. Kristine is a myeloma patient who has been with All4Cure. She is a fitness blogger, mother, and we are really excited to have you. Hi, Kristine. Hello. Would you tell our listeners a little bit about you?

Kristine: Like they said, my name is Kristine and I am actually 42. My birthday is in August. So I celebrate every birthday because you know, when you have cancer, you celebrate everything. So yeah, I'll be 43 in August and I am a mother to a five-year-old who I actually found out that I was, that I had multiple myeloma when I was pregnant with him. I was 28 weeks pregnant with him. And I worked for the state of California. Right now I'm on loan to do a contact tracing program. And in my free time, I have been for the last year and a half or so getting into running again. I used to work out all the time before my diagnosis, and I had to stop that because my doctor told me I couldn't and I have found over the last year and a half or so, that was starting to walk a lot more and further distances that I can do this, you know, just listen to my body more. So in about March or so, I started running and I'm actually training for a half marathon that's in January.

Kristine: So yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm also getting into art. I've found during the pandemic that I actually have an artistic side.

Lauren: That's awesome. What kind of art are you doing?

Krisitne: I am doing just mainly drawing and I actually did a painting for my husband for father's day. It's a huge canvas of a guitar because he loves playing guitar. He loves guitars and it's an acoustic style guitar. And it has like a outdoorsy mountainous scene on the bottom with like space up on top. And then coming out of it is like the chakra colors in order going up. Because we we've gotten into like meditation and yoga and the chakras and stuff and how they work and go with our body and your soul and everything.

Sara: Sounds so cool. Yeah. So Christine, we are really excited to talk to you today as we are discussing myeloma and cancer and how it interacts with things like parenthood and pregnancy. And we wanted to speak with you because as you mentioned a little bit earlier, you were actually diagnosed with myeloma while you were pregnant. Would you mind sharing that pregnancy experience and how myeloma impacted it?

Kristine: Of course. So before my diagnosis, my pregnancy was going pretty well. Like I didn't have really any other symptoms, issues, no pains, no nothing. Nothing like that. I was able to work out through my whole pregnancy and everything. Well, up until diagnosis. The only thing that I had was July of 2015, I had a sciatica (which, killer). The only thing that helped it was getting in a pool and just kind of being weightless. And then basically about two weeks later, I went for my third trimester checkup and my doctor, my OB, he was pretty concerned over the protein levels in my urine because they kept consistently getting higher and higher. So he's like, no, I'm just going to refer you to a kidney doctor. And so he got on the phone in that appointment and got me an appointment for that day because he thought it was so concerning that he was able to do that for me.

Kristine: So we went and I had that appointment. They did like 10 to 12 vials of blood taken on top of the third trimester vials that were taken also and everything was coming back normal to okay. Average all that until the last one. And that one came back saying that my bone marrow was producing abnormal protein. Well, when you see that, I did the not so smart thing and I Googled that phrase and all that comes up is Multiple Myeloma. So I kind of got scared, but the nephrologist actually told me that she was referring me to hematology and that they should be giving a call in the next couple of days. This was a Sunday evening Monday morning, first thing, I got the call and they scheduled me for that following Wednesday and got in. And then of course it was basically right off the bat. The doctor, my oncologist, introduced himself to my husband and then he looked at me, he put his hands together.

Kristine: He came over, gave me a hug, sat down, and said, "I am so sorry but you have cancer, Multiple Myeloma. And at that point, everything that I thought about my pregnancy and how it was going and how it would go and my delivery and how everything my life would be being a mother (especially being 37 at the time) was kind of coming out of my head, gone. I don't remember, everything went fuzzy. And I was just in shock for like a few minutes. And he started talking to us about, you know, what this is and everything. And I am so happy that my husband was there and that he is the kind of person that in a situation like that he'll take control and do all the listening and taking the notes and asking the questions.

Kristine: He actually just came over and sat with me, comforted me but did all that while I was just in shock and, like, tears started coming down. I was pretty distraught actually for days. The first calls that we made was to my dad first and then was to my step-mom and I called my mom. And then after that we just kind of waited and I didn't tell anybody for about two weeks. I would wake up in the middle of the night, several times in the middle of the night, in full on tears and it was just hard. Once I did tell, I only told like two of my closest friends and they were on it. They were giving me resources. They made flights last minute to come up to be here for the really quick baby shower. We were told that we might have to have him at. I was 20 weeks pregnant and we were told that we might have to have them at 29, 30, 31 weeks, which really scared me.

Kristine: But luckily we were able to keep him cooking for a little bit longer. They left it up to me and my pain levels because everything was actually sitting pretty good. It wasn't progressing quickly or anything. We just went week by week. And finally about 35 weeks. I said, you know, this is too much pain on my back. And I had him at 35 weeks and two days, I believe, it was something like that. And I had him C-section instead of normal because they were afraid that if I pushed it would cause more fractures in my spine, my hips, and everything. So they didn't want to cause any more damage than what would had already happened. I did get to breastfeed, which I wanted to do, but we immediately also supplemented with formula because we knew that once I started chemo, I wasn't going to be able to breastfeed.

Kristine: So I got to breastfeed him for about a month. I kind of just took it as, like, you know what, now that I have him, he's here. I have to do this. I have to fight to be able to be here for him. Because at the time the life expectancy was about three to five years is what everybody was telling you. And so that wasn't very long. We weren't sure if I'd be able to be there for his first day of school. We weren't sure if I'd be there for anything, if I could be capable to be there, to do anything with him. So I did. I just took it and, you know, made as many memories as we could.

Sara: That is an incredible, and definitely a rare experience, but it's really encouraging to see you now. It's incredible. And I know, I believe recently you just celebrated your Rebirthday.

Kristine:Y es, my 5th Rebirthday, June 6th.

Lauren: Congratulations!

Kristine: Thank you, Yeah.

Lauren: Very exciting. And so your son is five now, right?

Kristine: Yeah.

Lauren: How do you talk to him about having cancer and your diagnosis?

Kristine: So yeah, we haven't really fully gone into it with him because he is only five and he's still young. But he is a very smart kid. He knows how biology works. He knows about the immune system and everything. He is on the spectrum, so his thing is science and space and stuff like that. So he understands, you know, biology, like I said and stuff. So he knows that I go to the doctor all the time and then I have to go and get medicine, special medicine, to help me be okay and be fine and be healthy. And then also that I go and do labs and stuff. So, you know, there for that and stuff. I mean, everybody in oncology has known him since he was in my stomach, so he's part of the family. Everybody loves him, knows him, they're so excited to see him when he comes in and they always ask about him and how he's doing.

Kristine: So we haven't really gone in on it too much, but I do have a book that was recommended to me that we gave him and every now and then he'll want me to read it. It's more tailored towards somebody that has breast cancer. It's called 'Cancer Hates Kisses' and basically it's like a mom that has breast cancer and then her little kid and it's how they introduce him, you know? So giving kisses all the time to make the cancer go away. We're just kind of waiting until he really asks the questions and stuff or can really understand it?

Sara: That makes a lot of sense. I think it's really amazing that they're creating children's books that deal kind of these big topics, you know, even if a kid is really interested in the science behind it, just kind of understanding the gravity of a disease like this can be a lot for a little developing mind.

Kristine: It can be heartbreaking, I think. Because all they would know is that most cancers, people pass away. I've been thinking of it the last couple of years, especially as he gets older and older of trying to write a book about it for little kids, too. Just the talks about chemo and doctors and all that stuff.

Sara: I think that's awesome. Send me the Amazon link when you get it published.

Kristine: Awesome, thanks!

Sara: If you don't mind me asking, what is your favorite thing about being a mom?

Kristine: Oh gosh, for me, my favorite thing, it's also my husband's, is just when we're sitting here at home, whether it's as a family or like today he's playing in the background right now. Just sitting there and watching him play and watching how his mind works trying to figure out what is going through his mind and what he's thinking and everything like that. And then having him just kind of come up to you randomly and say, "Mommy, I love you" and giving you a hug or a kiss. It just warms my heart and I get like all fuzzy. I'm just like, oh, somebody so little can love me so much. And vice versa. Like, you know, when you're first born, it's just like, how can I love you so much? And I just met you. It's incredible.

Sara: I remember you mentioning that throughout your pregnancy, you kept journals. And I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit.

Kristine: Yeah. I actually didn't start keeping the journal really until my diagnosis. And it came as a suggestion, like I was thinking of doing it just because we didn't know when and if anything would happen. So I was thinking of doing it. And then I was talking to one of my friends who used to be one of my supervisors when I was a dispatcher for one of the state agencies here. And she actually said, "You need to do it". And then her husband also said, "You know what? You need to do it because I wish I had my mother's writing. I don't have anything of my mother's that is like that. And he will cherish it forever." And so she actually gave me my first journal. You know, at first I started writing in it pretty much daily. I'd just write about what's going on in the world or what we did that day. Once a week, I would do it.

Kristine: And then I'd kind of skip weeks or months. And then I think, "Oh yeah, I need to write in there! I need to write what's going on." And so I'll write, you know, a little bit longer piece and stuff. Which actually reminds me, I need to write it. I keep telling myself, I need to write. I haven't in about two months. So I'm actually on my second book almost finished with the second journal and I have a couple more journals, like blank ones, ready to go. I feel like it will be nice for him to see my point of view. My internal thoughts and the perspective of our life, of what we did, and everything from my perspective, and just be able to see and have that for the future. My thought is to give it to him when he turns 18. All the journals. Of course, if anything is to happen to me before then, heaven forbid, which I don't think there will because as it is, almost six years later and I'm still in the same treatment and it's doing well.

Kristine: So I'm, I'm very lucky. But anyway, my husband would give it to him when he feels he needs it the most. But yeah, I feel like it's a good thing. I think a lot of people, if they're willing and want to, should do it, it's a great way to get your thoughts out. You know, I think your kids, especially when, once they're an adult, they need to understand what was going through your mind. Through the process, through everything with cancer, because it's a rougher road. I mean, you have good days, you have bad days, you have really horrible days. It's up and down and they need to understand what you were going through and why mommy wasn't able to do this activity with you or why she did a lot more at this time and not this time and stuff like that.

Lauren: Oh yeah. That's a super great idea journaling and it probably helps you a lot on days too, you know, like you mentioned, just getting your thoughts out and it's super great. Yeah. Um, do you have any other advice for parents who are navigating cancer with children?

Kristine: Depending on the age, just make it age appropriate to let them know. Obviously at five years old, I mean, it's harder. And especially since, you know, he wasn't even born yet when I was diagnosed and he was so young, not even talking or crawling or walking or anything, at the time that I started treatment. Try to it in terms that they can understand, but not scare them because you don't want to scare them away from what you're going through. You want to make it as real as possible, but you don't want to scare them because you don't want to give them nightmares. You don't want to have them think the worst or anything. Just make the memories, take the vacation, take the trip. Whatever, you know, life is short. You'd never know what's going to happen. So just do what you can to make those memories and take pictures and get your husband to take the good pictures.

Sara: Definitely. I think that's really excellent advice and I hope it can help somebody in a similar position.

Kristine: Yeah, I hope so too. I just want to keep bringing awareness to multiple myeloma. I never knew about it until my diagnosis. So it's huge.

Sara: Definitely. Thank you so much, Kristine, for being here with us today and having this really lovely conversation. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Pod4Cure. If you or someone, you know, has multiple myeloma and would like to register with All4Cure for free, you can visit www.All4Cure.com.