Music Connection

Musicians are usually very interesting people. I love reaching out to them when I learn their tunes. Most the time, they never reply, but today one did. Pretty cool, really. Dan Baird was the singer/songwriter/guitarist behind Georgia Satellites. I sent him an email asking about some of the back story about "Sweet Blue Midnight" and "Another Chance", two tunes I have been tooling on. I mentioned how I seem to connect to tunes differently since Melissa's cancer, and that both kind of hit close to home with me now. Here is his response...

Hi Charles

I'll tackle the easy one first.
That would be another chance.
Turn the chords to Ooh-la-la around.
Get a catchy first line. Start singing about the 3 stages of life, birth, middle age and death, then write an honest chorus about when you'd like to go. Aka - when you're done. Remembering that if you're gonna rip off Ronnie Lane, do a good damn job.
Then arrange it like a vocal by "The Band" where it gets passed around.
Have your drummer go to bass, bassist go to mandolin, and unplug your 2 guitar guys.

Sweet Blue Midnight is a fair-thee-well to someone who's falling out of love with you.
You don't want it to happen, hope it's not happening, but it is.
And finally the acceptance of future absence. Hence "close my eyes, and let it go, (I) tried to be the kind of man".
Yet there is a desire for the old comfort, even though it's not possible anymore.
If you want more personal than that, I'm not gonna help. It's too personal.

Glad you enjoyed the songs, so sorry about your wife. Tell her that I've had an epiphany in my past. The spirit that came to me didn't bother with a name, but let me know one thing; there is more.
Peace to you both
db

Surviving Isn't Everything

I found the following on a website about brain injuries...

HERE

I think is speaks volumes of what I deal with on a daily basis.  

Many think that surviving cancer means you can just move on and go about your life.  For some kinds of cancer, that is case, but not with brain cancer.  The injuries caused by the cancer, surgeries, and treatment do irreversible brain damage.  It has proved to be more difficult than dealing with the mortality issues that come with cancer (for me, anyways - cargiver).  I deal with things impossible to explain.  My wife is oblivious to these things, which makes talking about them or attempting to treat them nearly impossible.  Just remember, with brain cancer, surviving is just part of the struggle.

"Millions of people are seemingly affected with brain injury now a days. And the effect does not only fall on the person injured himself but even to those family members and everybody surrounds him. Most of the time, we think about the caregiver as always the victim, but what should be considered is not about who was or will be hurt or directly affected but rather, other issues that would arise within the family members which will create conflict.

Issues that needs to be faced when a loved one has a brain injury is not only limited to emotions finances and physical well-being of the caregiver. Every member of the family and even those that surrounds the brain injured loved one must be obliged to adjust as quickly as possible in order for them to provide proper care and be able to meet their needs.

People with brain injury must be understood and accepted and if possible, the family should join a support group who could help provide strength, wisdom, and much-needed encouragement along the way. Also, the injured individual along with its caregiver must adjust with each other. Concerns like emotional, behavioral and cognitive development might not come out as expected, so much adjustment must be made.

Person with brain injury most of the time, act unbecomingly, easily irritated and is not aware of how he acts, so the caregiver must be patient and supportive physically and emotionally."

This next statement speaks to why I blog about these things...

"Taking care of a person who has brain injury requires a lot of time, emotions and even physical endurance. They depend too much on their caregiver so in return; caregiver must be encouraged by people who are in the same situation."

Another Clean MRI

Melissa had ANOTHER clean MRI today!  Yeah!

Birthdays and MRI's!

Our son Michael turned 8 today.  Seems like only yesterday he looked like this...

...and now he is....

He is literally the best thing I have done with my life.  Just about every day he finds a way to make me proud of him, despite a fair level of mischief.  Happy Birthday to the best son a man could have.


MRI's!  Yes....Melissa has one coming up.  She has had some issues the past few months with head-aches, in particularly, behind her eye of that side.  I suppose you never stop worrying before these things.  I will post a follow up after we get the results.