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I used my recovery time to reflect on my life, on what was important and how to spend my time. I found inspiration through a book recommended to me by a tour guide, Tolga, whom I’d met while on vacation in Turkey. I emailed him about my lung cancer. He wrote back, quite unsentimentally, and said to read The Alchemist, a fable by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. It’s a book about learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.
This wise guide said it was for me to make something of my experience. After I finished reading the book, I realized that the key point was about transforming commonplace events into something of value, making something of each and every experience. This message spurred me to think about how I could find a way to make something worthwhile and life affirming out of having had lung cancer, an experience that on the surface was of no value whatsoever.
The answer was Upstage Lung Cancer.
Creating Upstage Lung Cancer
My life has been about caring for people and bringing joy into their lives when I can. I have two professions. I am a clinical psychologist and I am a professional singer. As a psychologist, I have the honor of being invited into peoples lives and connecting at a deep level. As a singer, and a member of The Follen Angels (my jazz/cabaret group), the music is also about making meaningful connections. Our group has so much pleasure creating music together and then sharing our programs with enthusiastic audiences. Music ignites deep feelings and often, important memories. For me, music is life affirming. It’s therapeutic. Could I turn these skills and interests into something that could make a valuable contribution to raising awareness of lung cancer and its serious consequences, while supporting research on early detection and new treatments for this dreaded disease?
The birth of an idea
My reflections led to ideas about creating a musical theater event that could be used to raise money to benefit lung cancer research and raise the awareness of our cause. I began to conceive of a show to feature the great showman, Florenz Ziegfeld. I shared this with my friend, Buck Spurr, producer and entertainment consultant, who was immediately sold on the idea. Next, I turned to another dear friend, Crispin Weinberg, who for many years had served as producer for a show, Devotion Follies, we had worked on together in Brookline, Massachusetts. I asked him for his help with new project and he was eager to be there 100%. Finally, I called my writing partner, John Lamb and asked him if he’d be willing to put our current project, a mystery novel, on hold to help me finish writing a musical theater show I’d begun called, Ziegfeld! He too was enthusiastically on board.
I met with nationally renowned Thoracic Oncologists Tom Lynch, MD and Jennifer Temel, MD at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston, Massachusetts. We discussed the exciting and innovative research going on at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center looking at early detection and new treatments for lung cancer. I told them I wanted to use the Ziegfeld! project to raise funds to support these efforts. They couldn’t have been more enthusiastic.
Crispin and I contacted Susan Gessner, who six months earlier, had been diagnosed with lung cancer in a very early stage, too. She happily agreed to serve as President of the Board of the non-profit organization we wanted to create. Our friend, Melissa Langa, an attorney, volunteered to help us with the papers and we submitted the application in August, 2008. From there, we contacted a group of dear friends with exceptional abilities and talents and asked them to serve on the Board of Directors of our new organization. We held our first Board meeting in September. Each member brings particular areas of expertise and energy to make us an effective, think-outside-of-the box organization. We also asked Tom Lynch, MD, Jennifer Temel, MD and John Wain, MD, all outstanding specialists in the field of lung cancer to serve as a Medical Advisory Board. They each accepted with great enthusiasm.
Our Board of Directors agreed with my vision that we could do more if we created other shows as we work on producing Ziegfeld!. And so, our name Upstage Lung Cancer was born. In October, 2008 we had our first fundraiser, a cabaret/jazz concert in a private home. The evening included a jazz performance by the Follen Angels, and a very inspirational talk by Dr. Jennifer Temel. Dr. Temel discussed the status of lung cancer and her own work on the psychological aspects of living and dying with the disease. The event was a tremendous success, and we are planning a second, similar program on March 29, 2009.
I continue to be thrilled by the outpouring of help from professionals who volunteer their time and help. Robin Friedman at Visual Velocity continues to give us amazing graphic designs and creative website development support. Fatima Scipione at McK Healthcare helps us to think about fundraising and promoting our organization. Steve Biondolillo is helping us figure out how to raise lung cancer awareness so that it equals breast cancer awareness. Paula Davis, medical writer, and Annette Pringle, editor, make sure everything we write is of the highest quality. And there are many more wonderful volunteers helping us to make Upstage Lung Cancer to succeed.
The fact that I have had lung cancer is ever-present for me. My six month CT scans are wonderfully reassuring yet terrifying to anticipate. There is always that What if…? fear.
But, instead of focusing on “What if?” I want to put my considerable energy into working on our original Ziegfeld! show and thinking about creating other exciting musical events. We are on our way. We are using music and entertainment the – elixir – of life to fight lung cancer.
We won’t stop until we upstage lung cancer
Wait for Me, Baby $15
The Follen Angels’ own vocalist, Hildy Grossman teams up with renowned jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen to create a dynamite tribute to the many faces of love. A few of their songs are Angel Eyes, Lulu’s Back in Town, What’ll I Do? and their original composition, “Wait for Me, Baby” a blues song about a man that done her wrong.
Wait for Me, Baby
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