Alan Stephenson

Alan Stephenson lived with severe back pain for years before discovering he had myeloma after his L5 vertebra collapsed in April 2016. He was sent to the UAMS Myeloma Institute and was initially treated by Dr. Gareth Morgan. Alan was told he had fractures in almost every vertebra, close to 150 lesions on his bones and 60 percent of the cells in his bone marrow were cancerous. He had clusters of fractures in his ribs which caused even more pain. Alan was told that without treatment, he probably had about three months to live, but Dr. Morgan and his team were confident that with proper treatment, he would do well and reclaim his life. Alan had four rounds of chemo, two stem cell transplants, and 16 rounds of immunotherapy before starting his current maintenance treatment plan, as well as several procedures to repair the damage to his back. He is currently treated by Dr. Frits van Rhee at UAMS and is in remission. If all goes as planned, he will finish maintenance treatments early in 2020. He now competes in archery tournaments, fishes and most of the other activities that he did before cancer. He is back at his job as a financial advisor, started a second business in 2018 and is now partners with his son in a third business. He also travels the country to share his story with others fighting multiple myeloma to give them hope and a positive attitude. His next goal is to scuba dive and spearfish once again.