Chronicles of a
Cancer Patient

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I think it’s easy to look at the things going wrong in your life and compare them to the things going right in other people’s lives and to sit and curse awhile. It’s easy, but I don’t believe in doing it. I recorded an old song today about that.

Now, I’m not a praying man, but I am a thoughtful man. I recorded this song today, not because of it’s religious bend, but rather, I guess, in spite of it’s religious bend.

Normally a bluegrass waltz, I wanted to slow this song down and put in some piano to make the lyrics a bit more…searing, I guess is the word.

My voice is a little shaky on this one. See, I stopped singing ten years ago, mostly because I sang out of tune and that made singing *not* fun. And for a long time now, my cough made singing mostly impossible. I always told myself that if I could ever get rid of that stupid cough, I would start singing again. But more than that, I realize now that life is short, and it’d be a waste if you didn’t spend it singing. So be forgiving, will you? I’m starting my life again here.

Farther Along

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder,
Why it should be thus, all the day long;
While there are others, living about us
Never molested, though in the wrong.

Farther along, we’ll know all about it.
Farther along, we’ll understand why,
Cheer up my brothers, walk in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all, by and by.

When death has come and taken our loved ones,
Leaving our homes so lonesome and drear,
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Living as sinners year after year.

Farther along, we’ll know all about it.
Farther along, we’ll understand why,
Cheer up my brothers, walk in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all, by and by.

Now that I’m diagnosed, and now that I’ve put on a little weight, some friends are starting to shyly admit that, actually, I wasn’t looking all that good in the past few months. Well, I guess it’s more like “You’re looking much better!” This caught me by surprise the first time few times, as I hadn’t realized I was looking that bad before. But I guess you can see from these pictures that I had started to wither quite a bit. They call cancer a “wasting” disease.

Hospital patients evacuated
Officials were trying to evacuate 10,000 people — patients, staff and refugees — out of nine hospitals battling floodwaters or using generators running low on fuel. About 300 people were stranded on the roof of one two-story hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette.

Yet even as they tried to evacuate, many hospitals faced an onslaught of new patients — people with injuries and infections caused by the storm, people plucked from rooftops who are dehydrated, dialysis and cancer patients in need of their regular chemotherapy or radiation treatments…

Source: Associated Press, Link: MSNBC

North Texas ramps up its hurricane relief efforts
…A cancer care center in North Texas, meanwhile, said it is available to assist cancer patients who were displaced by the hurricane.

Carrollton-based Patients’ Comprehensive Cancer Center said it is available to help patients who are currently undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and biological treatments…

Source: Dallas Business Journal

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I was listening to B.B. King’s version of this tune last night and I was really feeling it. I think it fits the feeling I have for all of my friends and family right now – a kind of dependent gratitude.

Really, I think B.B. King’s version is probably better, but the guy was touring in Japan with a billion studio musicians when he made that one, and I made mine in my basement. If you listen closely, you can hear the water running through our pipes in the background. (But who cares what it sounds like? I’m on chemo. I can sound like a rat in a toaster and I’d just be happy I’m still walking. And come on, nobody’s going to tell me I suck, I have cancer. I should take advantage of this brief time when I can sound however I want to sound!) Hope you enjoy.

Hummingbird
Written by Leon Russell

Sometimes I get impatient,
but she cools me without words.
And she comes so sweet and so softly,
my hummingbird and have you heard
That I thought my life had ended?
But I find that it’s just begun,
’cause she gets me where I live.
I’ll give all I have to give.
I’m talking about that hummingbird.

Oh she’s little and she loves me,
too much for words to say.
When I see her in the morning sleeping,
she’s little and she loves me.
To my lucky day,
Hummingbird don’t fly away.

When I’m feeling wild and lonesome
she knows the words to say.
And she gives me a little understanding,
in her special way.
And I just have to say,
in my life I loved no other.
Because she’s more than I deserve,
and she gets me where I live.
I’ll give all I have to give,
I’m talking about that hummingbird.

Oh she’s little and she loves me,
too much for words to say.
When I see her in the morning sleeping,
she’s little and she loves me.
To my lucky day,
hummingbird don’t fly away.

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I’ll be coming out with a 2 CD set soon, The Dave Hahn Trio, Live at Bank One. I’m expecting it to be wildly popular.

Just kidding. But yes, I had a gig at a bank. We were set up right next to the teller counter, under the florescent lights, away from the booze. Right, the booze. In a bank. It was another odd gig.

But it was actually really swinging. It’s not the best recording, but it gives a little of the ambience. The Dave Hahn Trio is myself on piano, Casey “Hunka Hunka Burning Love” Nielsen on guitar, and the formidable Alex Austin on bass. We all met at college years ago, but just recently started gigging together again.

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I was reading Julie Hamilton’s account of her battle with Hodgkins today, and this tune came out. It sounded kind of dumb on the piano, so here it is on guitar(s). I guess I was feeling really lucky while reading Julie’s blog. Many of the things she talks about haven’t happened to me, at least not yet, or at least not as severely.

She finished her chemotherapy months ago, and it’s interesting to read her thoughts on post-chemo life. It doesn’t sound like her body has gone back to normal as quickly as she had hoped. Yet, I suppose she’s, nevertheless, getting more use out of her body in that condition than she would if it were six feet under.

Ooh, is that bad manners? Is it wrong to talk so flippantly about mortality like that? I guess I wish we all talked about it more often. We might not forget about it then, we might not be so terrified of it, and we might not be so shocked when it comes knocking. Nobody’s getting out alive, after all.

You’re right, that’s probably bad manners.

That’s right, no questions asked. They excused me in a hurry right over the phone.

Treatment #7 tomorrow, Halloween. I thought I might dress up to go in. I could go as a doctor, but they might mistake me for the real thing (unlikely). I could dress up as a healthy person, but I look like that anyway. A zombie might be a bit tasteless, and they may feel weird taking the blood of a vampire. If I’d lost more hair maybe I could go as Mr. Clean (or Vin Diesel!).

I visited the doc today. He said that the hiccups, the dry skin, and really, every side-effect I’m having is from one particular drug in the chemo cocktail – the one called Bleomycin. He’d never seen hiccups before (it’s the overachiever in me), but they were ‘described’ as a side-effect of the medicine. He told me to go pick up a liquor from the local liquor store that would do the trick. And in case the 45% alcohol didn’t help, he also filled out a prescription for a muscle relaxant as a backup.

After sucking on a few alcohol soaked sugar cubes, as suggested, my hiccups had still not left, so we went with the backup plan. The pills chilled me out a bit, but every three hours the hiccups would be back. I have a stubborn diaphragm.

The doc also said that there’s an 80% chance that I won’t have to do radiation. I don’t know where he gets this statistic, but it sounds nice. In reality, we won’t know if I’m in the 80% that doesn’t or in the 20% that does until I get my CT/PET scan next month and we see how Tito’s doing. I’m encouraged, though, by the progress my body has made through this, and I’m crossing my fingers that I might be in the 80%. Cross yours too, ok? Radiation is a nasty process that I don’t want to go through (I guess the same could be said of chemotherapy…).