Early Detection Saved Me: A Veteran’s Story
Diseases
Blood Disease, Cancer, Immune Disease, Mental Health, Urological Disease
Issues and Challenges
Eric has encountered: Access to Expert Providers, Insurance Issues, Mental Health Access, Rare / Underserved Disease, Veterans Affairs
My Story
When I came home from the Gulf War, I thought the most challenging part of my life was behind me. I built a career in corporate finance, raised a family, and did my best to move forward — even as fatigue, chronic mouth sores, inflammation, and the effects of PTSD slowly became my new normal. I didn’t realize those symptoms were early signs of something deeper.
Over the years, the VA connected my symptoms to service-related conditions — PTSD, chronic fatigue syndrome, and a Gulf War autoimmune illness. For more than a decade, I managed them with biologics and steroids to control inflammation. Those medications helped me function but weakened my immune system. Like many veterans, I kept pushing through — until August 2024, when another wave of exhaustion sent me back to the doctor.
That visit changed everything. The VA found smoldering multiple myeloma, an early form of blood cancer. Scans also showed bone lesions on my skull that could have been dormant or cancerous. To confirm the diagnosis, I went to the Mayo Clinic, where specialists agreed with the VA’s findings and recommended close monitoring rather than a biopsy.
While there, my Mayo team found something else — elevated IL-18 and TNF cytokines, along with a genetic marker for Yao Syndrome, a rare auto-inflammatory disease. The same medications that had reduced my inflammation might also have been suppressing my body’s ability to fight cancer. With my doctors’ guidance, I stopped those drugs and shifted to lifestyle-based inflammation management — nutrition, exercise, acupuncture, and mindfulness.
For the first time, my care bridged two systems — the VA and Mayo Clinic — working together to manage my overlapping autoimmune and cancer conditions. The VA understood my service history; Mayo brought specialized expertise. Together, they helped me see the complete picture of what toxic exposure had done to my body.
A year later, in August 2025, my bloodwork and scans were stable — a huge relief. But another wave of fatigue soon led to a new diagnosis: stage 1 prostate cancer. Prostate cancer was already recognized as presumptive under the PACT Act, the law passed in August 2022 to expand care for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. Then, just months after my 2024 diagnosis, the VA expanded the PACT Act to include multiple myeloma and its precursor conditions, such as smoldering myeloma and MGUS, as presumptive illnesses—giving more veterans access to timely healthcare and disability benefits. My illness and those policy changes were unfolding almost side by side. It felt like proof that science, lived experience, and policy were finally beginning to align.
Both cancers are early and low-risk, giving me time to focus on health, balance, and mental well-being. Because my VA doctors had already been tracking my immune issues, they caught my cancer before it advanced. Early detection has likely added years to my life. This experience has changed how I see my role as both a patient and a veteran. I help lead a veteran support group through the International Myeloma Foundation, made up of fellow veterans and later-stage cancer patients who understand this journey firsthand. The shared message in our group is simple but profound: we’d rather know earlier than later. The data also support early detection; there is improved survival in patients diagnosed with SMM and MGUS than those diagnosed first with myeloma. Waiting until the disease causes irreversible damage isn’t fair to those who served.
That belief drives my mission — to make early screening for toxic-exposed veterans a national priority. My goal is for the VA and its research partners to launch a pilot program for early detection, starting with blood and inflammation markers that can identify cancers before they take hold.
Based on my connections as a patient at the Mayo Clinic, I now serve as a Patient Advocate on two National Cancer Institute–funded research initiatives — the Myeloma SPORE program and CIP-Net immunotherapy network. These opportunities allow me to bring the veteran and patient perspective directly into national conversations about cancer research and early detection. Treating late-stage myeloma can cost hundreds of thousands per year, while monitoring and early intervention cost a fraction of that. The same logic that once guided Agent Orange screening for Vietnam veterans should guide us again for the Gulf War and post-9/11 generations.
PTSD and depression can make every diagnosis harder to face, but I’ve learned that turning anxiety into purpose is the best form of therapy. Advocacy gives me strength, and it gives meaning to what I’ve gone through. Today I work with the VA, the International Myeloma Foundation, Mayo Clinic, and fellow advocates to show that coordinated care and early screening save lives. Veterans deserve proactive care, not reactive treatment.
The collaboration that connected my VA and Mayo teams should become the standard everywhere. I’ll keep working toward that goal — so that no veteran has to rely on luck to be found in time.
My Motivation and Inspiration
I help lead a veteran support group through the International Myeloma Foundation, made up of fellow veterans and later-stage cancer patients who understand this journey firsthand. My mission is to make early screening for toxic-exposed veterans a national priority. My goal is for the VA and its research partners to launch a pilot program for early detection, starting with blood and inflammation markers that can identify cancers before they take hold.
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