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Part
13
"The Average Day"
When
you are not working and not in school you have a lot more time
in the day to do nothing. A lot of you know that I am the kind
of person who always wants to be on the go. Before I was diagnosed
with cancer, I was working two jobs. At 5:30am I would go to work
at Brooklyns’S, a deli/espresso stand on South Tacoma Way
in Tacoma. I would work there until around 1:30pm. After work
I would grab a bite to eat, change, and drive over to the KPLU
radio. I would work in the development office at the studio until
about 5:00pm. After work at KPLU, I would usually drive somewhere
to get a bite to eat, and then make my way home. The first thing
I would do is hop in the shower, since I still smelled like sandwiches
and coffee. After my shower I would then go and either find someplace
to “sit in”, teach saxophone lessons, hang out with
friends, or sleep. The next day would be the same thing.
After
I started chemotherapy, my schedule lightened up quite a bit.
I didn’t work anywhere. I didn’t have to worry about
school. All I had to do was sleep. The thought of this makes a
busy guy like me uneasy. I will now talk about what an average
day would be for “Cancer Man”.
(Note:
this type of schedule is when I only had to go in to the hospital
for two hours)
I
would usually wake up at around 9:30 or 10:00am. By the time I
was awake, everyone in the house was usually gone. After waking
up I would hop in the shower for a couple of minutes. I would
get dressed, grab a blanket from my bed, and lay down of the couch
to watch TV. The Price Is Right always came on at 10:00am, so
I would usually watch that. After the Showcase Showdown, I would
drive to McDonald’s or Subway and get a bite to eat. Sometimes
the food tasted bad. Sometimes it tasted good. It all depended
on how white my tongue was at the time. I would bring the food
home and eat it, while playing my brothers Nintendo 64 system.
It’s
kind of funny, but I had some of my best practice sessions when
I was sick. After Nintendo, I would get out my saxophone and start
my routine. I would do the same routine day after day. This really
helped me keep my chops up. Sometimes when I finished a cool solo,
I would walk over to my next door neighbors house, Sarah Veins,
and show her the newest transcription. If it were a Monday, Wednesday,
or Friday (during when school was going on) I would drive over
to PLU to practice in the Jazz Band. Don Immel, who was the director
at the time, was really nice about letting me play in the band.
He brought up Brooke from the second jazz band to fill in for
me when I was at the hospital. So if I had one of my long weeks,
Brooke would play my part in the band. If it were a short week,
both Brooke and I would play the tenor 1 part. Playing in the
band was the highlight of my day. But I did get a little depressed
watching all of my friends going to school, while I was busy getting
pumped up with “Blee-Juice”.
After
jazz practice, I would usually meet someone for lunch or something.
It’s also kind of funny, but I think I went out with more
girls when I was sick then when I was healthy. I guess they all
felt bad for me or something. I didn’t care; it was just
nice to talk with someone. Some of those girls were Allison, Kelly,
Marissa, and Rhiannon. There were others too, but these four were
the ones I went out with the most. We used to do a lot of things.
Sometimes we would go out to eat. Sometimes we would watch a movie.
Sometimes we would go Put-Putting (miniature golf). It pretty
much varied. Whatever we did, it usually involved a lot of talking.
That was fine, because I had a lot to say at the time. I would
tell them about everything I was doing, and sometimes would tell
them funny stories like the ones in Testies, testies,…1…2.
I was nice letting getting that stuff off of my chest. I guess
the only thing bad about my little “dates” is that I
didn’t consider them to be real “dates”. I saw
them more as “pity dates”. All of those women were very,
VERY attractive. The problem was that I was very, VERY, VERY unattractive.
I would think to myself, “she doesn’t like me like that.
She wants to get hooked with a normal looking guy. Not one that
looks like a tall alien.”
Since
my stamina was so far down, a couple hours out in public usually
wore me out pretty good. So our dates would not last more than
3 hours, unless it was a good day. After leaving, I would usually
drive home and kick back. This would only be for a little bit,
because I always had something to do in the evening. If it was
a Tuesday, I would go to my church band practice. I am proud that
I never missed a rehearsal during my treatment. Sometimes I would
go there feeling really sick, but I still gave it my all when
I was there.
I
also never missed a gig. On Friday nights I would play over at
Roof & Doofs with the band. Sometimes I felt fine, sometimes
I would be really sick and would throw up in the bathroom during
my breaks between sets. Even though my tongue was white, I could
still taste the spices in the Cajun food at Roof & Doofs.
I would sometimes take a "doggie bag" home with my so
I could enjoy the experience of "taste" Saturday afternoon.
On Saturday nights I would also play. Sometimes I got called for
a gig with David Keys. Sometimes I would just sit in with him
at Grounds 4 Coffee. I had some good sessions when I was there
during that time. Kind of surprising for a sick boy. A lot of
the people at Grounds knew what was the matter with me, but a
few didn’t. I remember one time I was hanging out in the
back talking some of the musicians. There was this one sax kid
who thought he was "the man". He saw that I didn’t
have any hair (I wore a hat while I was there) and decided to
point in out to everyone. "Hey, look at Cliff! You shaved
all of your hair off!?! That looks SO stupid. Look, he even shaved
his eyebrows! Why did you do that?" When he said this to
me I got sick in my stomach. How dare this kid talk to me like
this! Doesn’t he know what I’m going through right now?
I ought to knock him out right now in front of everyone! Instead,
I just smiled and told him I thought it would be cool to shave
my hair. Stone Cold Steve Austin did it, and look at him? I was
pretty ticked off though. The next song started up, and it was
a good one. I asked the kid if he would come up and play with
me. He agreed, so we went up together. Now, I usually don’t
do this to people because I know it is wrong, but I didn’t
care. I made sure that he took the first solo. I then took my
solo and made it a point that I would smoke him in front of everyone.
I did. I wanted him to stay up there during my solo, so I stood
in the right place so he couldn’t go back to the back of
the room and hang out. He had to stay up there and listen. We
did a little “trading off” and I also played for the
pure fact of smoking him in front of all his little friends. I
did. After the song was over I smiled and thanked him for playing
with me. He packed up and left. I haven’t seen him since.
At
night I would stay up late and play video games with my brothers.
Eventually, Joe would want to go to sleep, so I would have to
go to the family room and watch TV. Since I didn’t have worry
about waking up at any certain time, I could stay up as long as
wanted. I usually waited until 3:00am, because that is when the
old reruns of Family Ties would come on. I would watch an episode
and then go to bed.
Now
this might sound really fun to some people. You get to sleep in,
watch TV, hang out with friends, stay up late,..."what a
life". But believe me, it’s the pits. I would sometimes
watch the clock go, wondering what I could do for 15 minutes.
Time went slow, and sometime I felt like I was going to go crazy.
After driving home from jazz band practice I would watch the clock
in my car and say to myself, "OK, it will talk me about 15
minutes to get home. Then I will go to the bathroom for 5 minutes.
It should be around 3:45pm then. Then I will practice until 5:00pm.
Then at 5:15pm I would go take a shower, etc, etc…"
I would sit there and think of every little thing I could do to
pass the day along. It was miserable.
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