We all have songs that run through our head.   Some make us smile, some make us cry.   Songs have the ability to carry us back to another time.   When I’m at home, and I want to paint, I am immediately taken back to 1973.   Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly".   It plays in my head and eventually runs through our iPod.   It’s a song I heard when I was 15 years old.   It usually played on the radio as I would lay oils on canvas and it still brings back those painting memories.   I use it now as a way of rousing the painting muses.   Of course listening to Charlie play "Scarlatti, Bach and Buxtehude" also rally up the muses, but there is comfort in the past.

Songs are important.   I met Charlie on September 11, 1990.   Basia sang Time and Tide and Charlie played Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue.   As our love blossomed, our friend Denise sang to us, My Funny Valentine in just about every nightclub there was in Saint Louis.   She eventually sang it again to us in our backyard on October 18, 1992, our two year anniversary and our "union" ceremony.   Of course we have many, many other songs that bind us.   I mention songs because during this "so called" journey through cancer, I’ve had songs to carry me through.   All of the lyrics to these songs may not be appropriate, but the essences of the songs are there.   One of my favorites is Gloria Gaynor’s . . .  aptly titled, "I Will Survive".   I have included the lyrics at the end of this note, so that you too can discover the survival story in it.

Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.   The New Year begins at sundown; so on this last day of this year, I learned that this New Year marks a new chapter in our lives, Charlie and mine.   I ended my chemo on August 1st, a very happy day for us indeed.   We spent my birthday aboard the Crystal Symphony and celebrated in Belfast, Northern Ireland.   Little did we know that as we celebrated, the cancer was back; lurking, growing and spreading throughout my body?   An MRI on September 4th showed that my prior lesions in the heart and liver had grown and that new multiple satellite lesions have formed in my liver.   There is suspicious activity in my lungs, but it is ambiguous at best.   Needless to say, we are not going to sit back and take it.   We are off tomorrow for NYC and I have an appointment on Friday afternoon at Memorial Sloan Kettering.   We are going to get on a study for a new drug, Sorafenib also called Nexavar.   We are also looking at the possibility of more chemo and maybe more liver Embolization.

I am stronger now than when I first began chemo . . .  both physically and mentally.   The first time I went through chemo I had undergone 4 surgeries.   I haven’t had any surgeries in over a year and a half now.   I’ve worked out at least 4 – 5 times a week in the gym and I am able to accept the challenge.   I also am going into this with less cancer than the first time.   In other words, I now have less cancer to kill.   We know what chemo agents will kill the cancer, so if the study doesn’t work out for me, we can revert back to chemo and hospitalization.   In any case . . .  I will survive.

I leave you with the words of Gloria Gaynor.

At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
and so you're back
from outer space
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second
you'd be back to bother me

Go on now go walk out the door
just turn around now
'cause you're not welcome anymore
weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble
Did you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive

So to everyone out there, I send you a big hug and a big hello.

It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart
kept trying hard to mend
the pieces of my broken heart
and I spent oh so many nights
just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry
But now I hold my head up high
and you see me
somebody new
I'm not that chained up little person
still in love with you
and so you felt like dropping in
and just expect me to be free
But now I'm saving all my loving
for someone who's loving me

Go on now go walk out the door
just turn around now
'cause you're not welcome anymore
weren't you the one who tried to break me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble
Did you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive