Musicians with Cancer and Other Maladies is NOT about money or donations, or benefits, it’s about Friends reaching out for each other.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends we haven’t seen for a while, you know the kind, where the years melt away and it as if the last time you saw them was yesterday. Of course one of them also had cancer, you can’t escape it, so that made two of us.

There was classic discussion about how do you talk to people with cancer and there’s no easy answer to that. Don’t ask “How are you?” We get asked that all the time and you probably don’t want to hear the answer. Also, when we are getting treatment the doctors and nurses ask how we are doing and need to train us to share all the gory details, so you could find that asking that question leads to even more awkwardness. By all means do ask if there is anything you can do to help. I’ve had lots of kind offers, most of which I haven’t taken up, mostly because of fatigue, but the offers mean the world to me, truly.

One of our friends asked about my new Facebook group Musicians with Cancer and other Maladies and asked if it was about getting donations. The simple answer is a resounding NO. I’m not looking for money, I’m not after benefit concerts; and having trolled YouTube looking for something similar to what I’m trying to establish for other musicians, I can’t find anything. They all seem to be about donating to research or people who need help. So I understand why people might think that.

That’s great because it shows there is a need for something different. This is just about helping a friend. A lot of the videos I am posting are asking for money at the end of a heartbreaking story. There are groups who need that and we support many cancer charities and our Team, the Early Birds will be doing our 4th Relay For Life in March, but that is nothing to do with  this page.

What people need most is the encouragement of friends. For example when people shave their heads in support of cancer, what matters to the cancer sufferer isn’t the money, it’s the gesture of solidarity. When my beautiful empathetic granddaughter had her hair cut (which was her idea), it was so that it could be made into a wig for someone with cancer who had no hair.

So please, no money, I’m just looking to create an environment where people who have friends with a condition that makes it hard for them to motivate themselves get some support.

I’ve opted for musicians for a number of reasons, probably the most important is that playing music is cathartic, it generates good feelings for both the musician and the audience. But what I’ve found is that sometimes due to chronic fatigue in my case, or perhaps depression in other cases, you just can’t bring yourself to pick up your instrument, or if you pick it up, you don’t have the energy to play it.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I received this from a good friend who sends me a message every day. I also get similar messages from friends who are much worse of than I am.

I can tell you that even when I really feel too tired for anything and fatigue is a bitch, nothing like just being tired or sleepy, but I get the message and off I go to the music room and play. It helps my soul and spirit even if I don’t feel like it.

But this isn’t about me, it’s about creating a movement of people helping people. It looks like it’s going to be a hard slog to make this work but joining the Facebook Group even if you don’t know anyone with cancer right now, you will. Just knowing you have friends who care makes a big difference. If they see you post a comment or share a photo, video or story, you will make a connection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JjnYWvaSVU

This is an example of what I’m talking about. Not the advertisement at the end, just the concept of friends being there for each other.

Anyway, as usual this is turning into a book. My request for you is as a friend or associate of mine or of anyone that has cancer or depression or PTSD or whatever, join the Facebook group and tell a friend you are there for them. A lot of you are serial networkers and you can help by spreading the word through your network. You will be doing a good thing.

So send no money, just help pay it forward if you would be so kind. If music means something to you, if it has ever helped you, if your friends matter to you, this is a really small thing that could mean the world, even if just to a couple of people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBhyv5rCqGc

Thankyou so much. Feel free to leave a comment.

A Cancer Meltdown

So a couple of weeks ago I felt like things were going OK. I had my cool car and whilst I was feeling really fatigued, I was coping. Then a pile of little things got the better of me. I was late with my tax (which I hate doing, because I normally do that at the end of the calendar year, when I was doing 8 weeks of radiation therapy and was too tired any other time. I’m between test results, so anxious about what the next result will be. My arm is really sore after taking the splint off my wrist from a thumb strain (which impacts on everything from using a mouse to playing guitar. Super busy at work and a number of other things, nothing that would be beyond the norm for any of us in isolation.

I had words with my wife, something that is very rare and after she left the music room, I lost the plot. I picked up my office chair and flung it at the floor breaking the base and ripping the carpet.

This was not good for our relationship and the following night I was away on business, which was probably s good thing to allow us to both cool down. It was totally on me and something I haven’t done since I was a teenager. I do not have an anger problem, it’s just one of the many emotions that you go through with grief and with cancer. Some people cry a lot (I only get emotional like that when giving speeches at weddings or when I’m watching an awesome concert). I might get slightly bloodshot in the eye when I’m passionate about something, but again that is when I’m happy.

So the following night I found myself in a hotel in Wellington after a 4:20AM start and a long working day. I sat in my hotel room looking out the window and pondering the meaning of life from about 5-7:00, went to bed. No dinner, no TV, a few SMS’s with my wife and slept for about 11 hours.

Bottom line, I really needed to let off steam. But I wasn’t finished and this is the good part. Right through summer when I usually write and play a lot of music, play a few gigs,  I couldn’t play, I had lost my mojo. Well after this exercise I got it back and over the last couple of weeks have written the backbone of a new song, which was the catharsis I needed.

Here’s what I’ve got  so far. It’s a country song, I really like country as a genre for telling stories. I hope to fine tune it enough over the next few week to start recording it, because I like the song as a song, not just a form of letting off steam.

If I Could Turn The Tables

Verse 1

If I could turn the tables I’d un-throw the chair that I just smashed

I’d un-rip the carpet that it tore when it flew down and crashed

Sometimes I feel that I can take no more, sometimes I derail from my track

I’ve got to get this cancer in control and find my way back.

Verse 2

If I could turn the tables I’d unsay the words that I just said

I’d turn down the volume of the voices that keep crashing through my head

Sometimes I feel like I’m OK, then the doubts start to shiver down my back

I’ve got to climb out of this hole and find my way back.

Chorus

Positivity is the frame of mind I ought to be in all the time

Everyone is nice and they want to give advice

Of a treatment they’ve heard of on the vine

Verse 3

I’ve got a lot to live for and each day I add on to my bucket list

I have great friends and family, there are special dates that I don’t want to miss

Sometimes I just want to cry, sometimes I wonder what its like to die

Then I think of those I’d leave behind and find my way back

Bridge

Every day’s a gift

Every day’s a steal

You can’t be the driver

Unless you take the wheel

Take the wheel

Chorus

Positivity is the frame of mind I ought to be in all the time

Everyone is nice and they want to give advice

Of a treatment they’ve heard of on the vine

Repeat Verse 1

If I could turn the tables I’d un-throw the chair that I just smashed

I’d un-rip the carpet that it tore when it flew down and crashed

Sometimes I feel that I can take no more, sometimes I derail from my track

I’ve got to get this cancer in control and find my way back.

-I’ll share a link once I’ve recorded it. It’s great to be back in writing mode and I hope I stay there. I’ve missed writing songs (other than my Pi project). I feel so much better having transferred my emotions into music.

I’ve been wanting to write songs about cancer to share, which might also help other people, be they the patients or friends and supporters. I have one other that I wrote but haven’t recorded yet, it’s more of a soul/reggae number which I wrote about losing my father in-law (also to cancer), but I thought I’d like to do a few covering different aspects.

Anyway, that’s me. Now I have to transcribe the song and publish it. If you’re still here, thanks for coming  on my journey with me.

 

Dealing with Cancer fatigue

It’s a little after 6AM and I’ve been awake for a couple of hours and decided to get up and do something constructive. My mind has been going ten to the dozen with ideas for my blogs, how to deal with all the exciting things happening at work, cancer and music.

This could become a book, which may help if you or someone you know is dealing with cancer, or it may not. At the very least it will help me as a journal and that’s fine.

Today is about emotions, not just for myself but the people that surround me and about coping mechanisms

The irony is that of all the people I know with cancer, my condition and prognosis is probably among the best. I’m about 6 weeks away from getting my next PSA tests, but the last one was the first one that went down since my 8 week’s of radiation, which is great.

Meanwhile 2 good friends have recently had mastectomies, one last week, she is still in hospital, another is making regular trips to hospital as the cancer has metastized, a colleague who is helping me by talking to me about her situation, which is terminal and another good friend whose cancer has now gone to his brain and is possibly inoperable.. None of these are people I met through cancer, they are just close people in my life.

My boss asked me a week ago how I was doing. I told her I felt I was improving, especially my fatigue and sleep, but that was speaking too soon, because as soon as I had told her that, it went backwards again.

Here’s a classic scenario for me, almost every day. I go to work and try to pace myself, with a goal to walk for half an hour at lunchtime (sometimes I achieve that, maybe once a week, because I suffer death by meeting). I love my work and when I’m busy I don’t think about the cancer at all. The goal is to leave around 3:30 and perhaps catch up on a bit of work reading when I get home or just rest. I then mostly leave between 4 and 5, which is still much earlier than I used to. If I don’t pace myself I really suffer to the point where it is an effort to raise my weary legs to walk from the car to the house, or do much of anything, where previously I used to go home and get on the cross trainer or go for a walk and play guitar. If I make it much later, I have to really think about whether I should be driving, make sure I have a coffee, windows wide open and focus. Don’t worry, I had one tiny moment once and have been ultra cautious ever since. I will not drive if I am too fatigued.

I come home, have dinner and fall asleep about 7PM. Once a couple of weeks ago I fell asleep eating a piece of steak, fast asleep, although my wife maintains I was chewing in my sleep, I think that was a moment when I woke up. I feel ripped off because that is my time and my time with my wife. She tells me to go to bed, but I feel too annoyed about losing my evening, the part of my lifestyle that I work for. By the 3rd time i grudgingly go to bed somewhere between 8 and 9PM feeling really bad for leaving my wife on her own every night.

Despite falling asleep in the lounge, I then need something to help me get to sleep when I get to bed, with which I am gone within 15-30 minutes. During the week I will sleep around 10-11 hours and wake up just as tired as when I went to bed.

On other nights, mostly weekends, I will wake up at 2 or 3 and get up and read for an hour and go back to bed, but I will still usually get 8-10 hours sleep.A couple of years ago I was fine with 6 hours sleep.

The fatigue is hard to describe. It is both physical and mental. At night it is a feeling of being dead tired and I have no control over it. I sit down, we watch TV or read my Kindle and within minutes I’m in a deep sleep. But it’s also physical. I now know what bone weary means, because that’s what’s its like. My whole body is exhausted. Lifting a limb is hard work. I go to play guitar and pick it up, put it down, it’s too hard and  LOVE my guitars.

I’ve been working on my attitude, but please don’t tell me to think positive, I think all cancer sufferers hate hearing that. It’s not helpful. I’ve been focusing, as in my previous blogs about things to look forward to. One of those was my new car. With the help from a malignant cancer clause in one of my insurance policies (which also continues to help with costs not covered by my heath insurance), I was able to by a  C5 targa top Corvette. Something I wanted all my life, but never thought I would ever own. The closest I thought I would get was sitting in one with my daughter at Disney World in Orlando. It is interesting how many people buy themselves a new car when they have cancer.

Ironically I wrote that goal in my bucket list app in 2011, not for a moment thinking it would come true and the due date for the goal was about 80 days from when it happened. I am a strong believer in goal setting, although I don’t do enough of it. I am starting to again though:)

But goals and things I look forward to may be as simple as putting new strings on my granddaughter’s guitar and giving her lessons, or a weekend away with my wife and friends, as well as bigger things like doing a rubber ducky boat trip on a glacial lake on the Tasman Glacier, a trip to Samoa this winter, or writing a new song. I’ve had several experiences where things on my bucket list that were highly unlikely, like being able to go to my grandmother’s 90th birthday party on the other side of the planet in Amsterdam, came true serendipitously and I subsequently got to go and visit her several more times before she passed away at 98.

The car is certainly good medicine. I love being behind the wheel and I even enjoy the process of polishing it, while listening to a podcast on my phone. We haven’t been on a road-trip yet, but it is now second nature, more or less, driving a left hand drive car in a right hand drive country. I am now the guy that I used to give the thumbs up to in a gas station or other places, when people see my car.

I’m going to break this up and the next blog is going to be about a melt down I had a couple of weeks ago, which was both bad and good.