Image Credit: CFJC Today/Kent Simmonds

By Adam Donnelly

MULTIPLE MYELOMA MARCH

Kamloops man with incurable cancer running to raise funds and awareness

Sep 25, 2020 | 5:09 PM

KAMLOOPS — Multiple Myeloma is an incurable type of cancer that occurs in plasma cells. Little is known about what causes this cancer, but there is no cure. This weekend, a Kamloops man who has Multiple Myeloma, plans to walk and run 50 km as a fundraiser and a chance to increase awareness. He’s doing his best to say positive despite his struggles with the disease.

On Saturday, Bob Trudeau plans to run for his life – literally. In 2016, Trudeau, who has been an avid runner and outdoorsman his whole life, hit pause on his active lifestyle due to severe pain in his chest.

“When they started investigating they found I have eleven vertebrae fractures,” the 62-year-old grandfather recounts. “January 3rd, 2017 – it was ‘you have multiple myeloma.’ It was like, oh my goodness! What’s that? I’ve never heard of it before.”

The first step in Trudeau’s journey was to find out more about this little-known cancer of the plasma cells. While multiple myeloma is considered incurable, some treatments can improve a patient’s quality of life.

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“They call is suppression because It never ever leaves your body,” Trudeau explains. “They cannot cure multiple myeloma, but they can treat it, for a while. Some people, unfortunately, cannot be treated. Once they’ve got it, they’re gone very shortly thereafter.”

Trudeau organized the original Multiple Myeloma March in Kamloops back in 2017 but wasn’t able to attend. This year, the plan is to run and walk 50 kilometres on Saturday, September 26th, with an ambitious goal of raising $10,000 for myeloma research; but for Bob, it’s about much more than the money.

“It’s really important to me to participate in this because over this short time period, three years, I’ve met a lot of people with multiple myeloma, and lost a lot of people there, too.”

There may be some extra motivation for Bob to help fundraise for myeloma research. He and his wife Jennifer recently welcomed a grandson into the family.

“This April, we had our first grandchild,” Bob says, his smile beaming through the cloudy Kamloops weather. “ A grandson. Today, he’s actually five months old.”

Since his diagnosis, Trudeau has experienced some ebbs and flows on his journey with the disease.

“It’s a real journey, I tell ya. It’s an amazing journey,” Trudeau tells CFJC Today. “I got a stem cell transplant in 2017, in August. I went off total medication for 18 months, which was great, but then it resurfaced again. They got me onto a new drug regimen, and now I’m [in a] maintenance [phase], so I’m doing well. I have a lot of energy and I’m going all the things I love to do: hiking, running biking, gardening. All that stuff. Spending time with my grandson.”

That recent addition to the family makes Bob’s run on Saturday all the more meaningful to this new grandpa. To donate, and for more information on the Multiple Myeloma March, you can visit www.MyelomaMarch.ca.