Join NIFTY!

It was May of 2009 and I was impatiently waiting to board the plane to Detroit from Boston. The opportunity to travel could not have come at a better time. I was in the beginning stages of writing songs for my new album but was uninspired by the late night drunken banter of college kids outside my garden level apartment window. I desperately needed a break from the noise of the city, so when a good friend of mine called to ask me to help organize and perform at Pretty in Pink, a Breast Cancer Benefit Concert in my hometown of Flint, MI, I seized the opportunity. Not only would it give me time to hang out with my family and perform with my friends, but it would also give me the solitude I longed for to relax and re-boot. Plain and simple, I needed this trip.

I spent the week rehearsing with my friends, shopping with my mom, eating my dad’s homemade barbeque ribs, and chatting it up with my ninety year old grandmother over coffee and tiramisu. Life was good. The benefit concert exposed the generosity of local businesses and patrons, and in the end we raised over $500 for the cause, an impressive feat considering its modest five dollar cover charge. The fruits of my labor had paid off and now it was time to have some real fun. Then everything changed.

After the concert, my best friend and I took a whirlwind 26 hour road trip to Chicago to treat myself for a job well done. The adventure was fun but exhausting and after a long drive back to Michigan and a satisfying McDonald’s flakey fish fillet I collapsed into bed. The next morning came too soon and I awoke to a beeping cell phone indicating a missed call from my mom. I didn’t think much about it and cheerfully started my morning rituals. A few hours and a couple of cups of coffee later, I decided to call her back and check in. Her quiet voice on the other end of the phone made my heart sink and I immediately knew something wasn’t right. “They found a lump,” she said “and I need to go back to the doctor. I think I need you here right now, can you come home?”

The world seemed to stand still and the only thing I could do was cry. I gathered my bags and raced home to be with my mom. The next couple of weeks were consumed with visits to doctor’s offices, bookstores and church. The lump turned out to be cancerous and together we formed a plan for treatment. We consulted doctors, read books, gathered information from the internet, and in the end made the decision to travel back to Boston for treatment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the foremost cancer treatment facility in the country.

It’s been five months since my mom’s original diagnosis of breast cancer and three months since her lumpectomy. She is currently undergoing chemo therapy which will be followed by radiation treatment in December. She is bald and beautiful and creatively adapts to her new look by flaunting hoop earrings and fake eyelashes. I can’t be more proud of the way that she has handled her situation and marvel at the fact that, although she is fighting a terrible disease, she doesn’t look sick. Her dedication to keeping up with her yearly mammogram allowed the doctors to catch her breast cancer early and because of this she saved her own life and mine.