New Treatments

Then at the end of summer, he received discouraging news. The leukemia was back and there was little more the doctors could do. “I want to live,” Thomas said to me. “I want to grow old with you. I want to play again.”

We mustered all of our energies and looked into alternative therapies and clinical trials. These were not the easiest of days, yet we had so much: our faith, our families and friends, each other. Thomas maintained a rigorous spirit and optimism. These days he wasn’t playing music onstage; the instrument he now played was himself. His generosity, courage, and humor were the notes coming out of him, and people – even strangers – were attracted to him. Often doctors and nurses called or stopped by the house to say hello, and former hospital roommates would phone him.

Between the new treatments and outpatient visits, Thomas spent most days in the sunny, back room of our apartment – his music room – that overlooked a neighbor’s small garden. We had to ask Thomas’s father to come and take the cockatiels away until Thomas was better. His father took the birds to a children’s museum near their home in Connecticut where they were welcomed and cared for.

It was late Fall and the days were shorter. The house was quiet without the birds. Treatments were continuing. Thomas was frail. One day I found him in the music room, sitting with the saxophone on his lap, tears in his eyes. “I just want to play again,” he sighed. And then, as if knowing some truth that hadn’t yet registered with me, he said, “I want to play one last time.”

As the weeks passed, I began to feel the weight of the illness overtaking all of our long, hard efforts. I could see Thomas’s fatigue; this was to be one of his most challenging periods. Yet, he wouldn’t give up. The desire to play music again fueled his fight.