Clinical Trial/New Doo

Tues. Oct. 23, 2007. 12:50 pm. New haircut!! Continuing to perform. Past weekend played ArtsMaplewood's Jazz Weekend Concert at Burgdorff Sat. eve , then a Church gig Sun am (music of Duke Ellington) then Sunday eve SwingTown Dance Party. Alot of fun. Exhausted Monday, slept in!! Today trombone 4 rehearsal. So, resting between gigs. Must learn to do less, drop out and tune in to self preservation. Carol and I hiked the reservation on a beautiful Saturday morning. Must continue same. Next weekend to Bethesda then to Virginia to hike in Shanendoahs. Leaf peeping. Again, need to find time for self. Read, listen, paint and sketch, practice, hike etc. Bass is back. Fabulous sound and feeling. Thank you Arnold. Thanks Ronnie. Trying to keep in touch with many friends and relatives. Trying to work my way back to a normal life style. I'm pretty much there, but have to let some things go. Less volunteering. Go tomorrow to MSKCC for checkup and coaching on injections. Carol will prep the next Vaccination spot (a different extremity each time) for next 2 weeks. In about 1 month, before the 3rd Vaccination, I must undergo another Bone Marrow Biopsy. Ugh!! Donating myself to science here. I just tried to lookup my Clinical Trial on NCI website. There must be hundreds of clinical trials for AML patients. Couldn't find mine in the listing. It's going well though. No negative reactions so far.
Again, thanks for all your support. I've learned so much about people, life, cancer and the world in this process. I feel fortunate to be living in the NYC area for medical expertise (and of course the arts). I feel fortunate to have the support from Carol, Rebekah, my entire family and friends. I'm feeling good and really appreciate that. It's not an easy process physically or emotionally, but my friends and relatives have supplanted the hardships with love, prayers, and attention/support. As Devon said to me Sunday, "we're blood brothers now". Hah!! I guess John we're now "platelet brothers"!! Hah!! I miss my Chemo Sabbe Michael. Fortunately we have lots of his music to dig. Music is so healing; uplifting. Challenging. Its a wonderful family.. music.
I'm reading about violinmaking, guitar playing, piano playing while listening to country, Irish, Brahms Second, Mehldau etc. Then studying scores, preparing scores (Birkhat), playing trombone/tuba/bass. Carol and I skimmed Annie Liebowitz's book 1990-2005 retrospective last night. Breathtaking. Susan's last years/months/days/hours. Powerful. Mixed with new life, 3 babies at the same time. And longevity. And deeply revealing portraits throughout. Creative; thoughtprovoking; solid.
Enjoy this beautiful Fall. JIM