{"id":343,"date":"2006-07-10T08:09:26","date_gmt":"2006-07-10T16:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2006-07-10T20:25:13","modified_gmt":"2006-07-11T04:25:13","slug":"ten-good-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Ten Good Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I mentioned a few of the things that helped me during my cancer battle. (You can read that post here<\/strong><\/a>.) I had planned to write something in commemoration of my ten year anniversary, but had not yet decided what date to commemorate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe date of diagnosis, the onslaught of simultaneous chemo and radiation treatments, the end of treatment, the post-treatment evaluation conjoined with another biopsy that supported a tentative pronouncement of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cured,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the date I felt \u00e2\u20ac\u0153recovered,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or the date five years later when the doctors feel confident enough to use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cured\u00e2\u20ac\u009d without caveats.<\/p>\n

What I neglected to mention in that earlier post were some of the people who I saw and\/or spoke to during that time. In addition to John, and my best friends, Phil, Susan and Tison, who stuck by my, chauffeured me, visited me, took me to doctor appointments and handled myriad other details for me, a few highlights stay with me always. Joe Williams singing Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s To Life<\/em> over the telephone, a phone call from Sonny Rollins (he told me that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to die), and hospital visits from Nancy Wilson and Lynn & Gerry Wiggins.<\/p>\n

Then there was the time I was paroled from the hospital to be treated as an out-patient, discharged with a 24\/7 iv chemo drip (they call it a pic line) with daily visits to the radiation center and to the lab for blood work. It was mid-June and Marian McPartland was in town to record. I drove myself to the O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Henry Sound Studios in Burbank and spent the day bathed in the sounds of Marian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trio (Andy Simpkins on bass, Harold Jones on drums) plus a 20-piece string orchestra conducted by Alan Broadbent. It was a beautiful session with lush arrangements, a more perfect medicine for the mind and soul I cannot imagine. I spent a lot of time in the 1970s hanging out with Marian and listening to her play almost nightly at The Cookery and Bemelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bar, so listening to tunes like Ambiance <\/em>and A Delicate Balance<\/em> took me back in time.<\/p>\n

Then came the Playboy Jazz Festival, Joe was performing and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to miss it. Despite Sonny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reassurances, I thought it might be the last time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever see Joe. So John took me to the Festival in my big-brimmed hat (radiation treatments and sunshine are not a good mix) and chemo drip taped down to my side.<\/p>\n

Outpatient treatment is a great idea, but I was getting too weak to handle it on my own. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when another girlfriend gave me a tremendous gift \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she risked her job by taking a 2-week unpaid vacation and used up her frequent flyer miles to come in from Hawaii to stay with me. This friend had lost her husband to cancer so it must have been more than difficult for her, but she did not hesitate.<\/p>\n

So what should I commemorate? The date of diagnosis has already slipped by me. The first biopsy was on May 15th<\/sup> and within a week I was in the hospital, had a tracheostomy, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153treatment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had begun. I could wait until July 29th<\/sup> to post this, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the day the treatment ended, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also when the doctors tell you that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know yet if the chemicals and radiation worked or not. Come back in six weeks, they said. I went to New York. It was mid-September when a third biopsy led the NY docs to say the cancer was completely gone, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when they tell you they want to monitor your progress every month for the next year, every six months for two years after that, and then once a year; when five years have elapsed cancer-free then they might use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cured.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

By now, the dates are no longer important; maybe they never were. The moral of this story is that people and music can make life better.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

ps. Yes, Ten Good Years<\/em> is the title of a song that Luther Henderson and Marty Charnin wrote for Nancy Wilson’s show at the Coconut Grove in 1964.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I mentioned a few of the things that helped me during my cancer battle. (You can read that post here.) I had planned to write something in commemoration of my ten year anniversary, but had not yet decided what date to commemorate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe date of diagnosis, the onslaught of simultaneous chemo and … Continue reading “Ten Good Years”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jazz-ears","category-this-n-that"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devradowrite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}