" HEAR ME ROAR ! "
March 15, 2008
 
Let me just start out by saying once again . . . no news IS good news.  I’ve not written much lately solely because there has really been nothing to write.  I’ve continued taking oral chemo daily . . . I’ve then added in a series of other drugs from which I could derive some benefit, but overall life is good, life is happy and life is worth living.  There’s no point in me shying away from the trials and tribulations that go on in my day to day life, as there is no point in filling you in with trivial details, therefore, no news.  I have faced opposition before and know that I can beat it head-on.  I have a great life, I have a great partner and I don’t take for granted each day I’ve been given.
The reason I bring up Yiddish is that there is a hymn that sometimes courses through my mind.  The song known as "The Partisan’s Hymn" and was written by Hirsch Glik in the Vilna ghetto.  It was sung by Jewish partisans all over Europe.  Its title has also been rendered as "Never Say That You Are Walking Your Last Road".  This is a song I learned at about age 10 and only knew it in Yiddish.  I had to look up the English translation.  Jewish Partisans, were Jews who were part of a resistance movement and fought the Nazi’s during the war and were some 30,000 strong.  They were escapees from Jewish Ghettos and from Concentration Camps.  They were true heroes.  They were not lambs for the slaughter.  This song was the song that got them through the tough times and this song was the song that many of them lost their lives to.  It was a song that united all Jews and non-Jews of Europe who opposed the Nazi regime.  I feel that just by knowing the words to this song I can connect to the past.  I can walk through the horrors they suffered and I can survive what I have been dealt.  The words in English are as follows:
Never say that there is only death for you
Though leaden skies may be concealing days of blue –
Because the hour that we have hungered for is near;
Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble: We are here!
From land of palm-tree to the far-off land of snow
We shall be coming with our torment and our woe,
And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth
Shall our bravery, our vigor blossom forth!
We’ll have the morning sun to set our day aglow,
And all our yesterdays shall vanish with the foe,
And if the time is long before the sun appears,
Then let this song go like a signal through the years.
This song was written with our blood and not with lead;
It's not a song that summer birds sing overhead.
It was a people, among toppling barricades,
That sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades.
So never say that there is only death for you.
Leaden skies may be concealing days of blue –
Yet the hour that we have hungered for is near;
Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble: & We are here!
Original Lyrics in Yiddish
Sog nit kejnmol as du gejsst dem letstn weg,
chotsch himlen blajene farshteln bloje teg, –
kumen wet noch undser ojsgebenkte scho,
’ss wet a pojk ton undser trot - mir sajnen do!
Fun grinem palmenland bis wajtn land fun schnej,
mir kumen on mit undser pajn, mit undser wej,
un wu gefaln is a schpriz fun undser blut,
schprozn wet dort undser gwure, undser mut.
’Ss wet di morgensun bagildn unds dem hajnt,
un der nechtn wet farschwindn mitn fajnt.
Nor ojb farsamen wet die sun un der kajor,
wi a parol sol gajn doss lid fun dor tsu dor.
Doss lid geschribn is mit blut un nit mit blaj,
’ss is nit kejn lid fun a fojgl ojf der fraj;
ess hot a folk tswischn falndike went
doss lid gesungen mit naganess in di hent.
To sog nit kejnmol, as du gejsst dem leztn weg,
chotsch himlen blajene farschteln bloje teg, –
kumen wet noch undser ojssgebenkte scho,
’ss wet a pojk ton undser trot – mir zajnen do!
I’ve given you the lyrics but I can’t give you the melody.  If you know it, you can hum it . . . if you don’t; the words are still powerful enough to take in the force and the command of the hymn.  It moved an entire people to fight for their lives.  It moves me to fight.
I am still in the fight for my life.
My news today didn’t come as a shock yet it was still a blow.  Don’t ask me how, but I knew what the doctor’s were going to tell me even weeks ago.  I felt it in my soul and I tried to let those around me down easy so that it wouldn’t be quite a shock to them.  I had already accepted it long before I heard it.  Oral chemotherapy is not working for me anymore and I will shortly begin once again receiving chemotherapy via IV injection.  I will most likely have a port put back into my chest.
What this means is that I am once again changing courses for the better.  I have found a better way to stay alive and I am going for it.  I don’t see this as a blow; I see it as a signal for change.
I am hoping that my first treatment will begin next Friday.  I will then spend the following two weeks in Costa Rica recuperating.  There are benefits to traditional chemo.  It worked before, so I know it can knock this out of me again.  Knowing that I’ll be going back to traditional chemo also means that I won’t have to shave anymore. I’ve had a bit of an annoying beard growth, but alas . . . no more!  There will be the annoying weight gain again, which will cause me anguish but which will make my doctors happy, and hopefully a little sun on my skin in Costa Rica will off-set the yellow-green glow I get from my weekly toxic milkshake.
I am a partisaner.  I am a fighter and I will fight the fight.  Blue skies are still above, and blue skies are ahead forever.
Thank you for joining me in the fight.
With much love,
Randy and Charlie
 
 
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