I lost a friend to cancer yesterday - R.I.P. Kelly Johnson (of Girlschool)

Although many of you might not know who I'm talking about - unless you were into the band Girlschool back in the early 1980s - I just felt the need to share some thoughts here. It's one of those things that one needs to get out and share with friends - and may in turn help someone else along the way.

I just heard the news that former Girlschool guitarist Kelly Johnson passed away on Sunday, July 15, 2007. She had been suffering bravely with spinal cancer for the past six years - and it finally won. I hadn't seen her in person for 24 years, but still this hit me particularly hard.

I first met Girlschool at the Keystone Palo Alto in early 1983 (although I had seen them before). We chatted up backstage for quite a while, doing an interview for a magazine I worked for at the time - Steel Meel. As it was, I had a huge crush on guitarist Kelly Johnson - and what guy didn't at the time, with her smile and late 1970s Farrah Fawcett hair-do, not to mention that this chick played guitar. To top it off, she was very sweet, and very charming.

At the end of the interview, as I was having the band sign autographs on some of the photos I had taken of them previously, I half-jokingly expressed a somewhat childish desire to go on a date with Kelly. I told her, of course I realized that I lived in the S.F. Bay Area, and she in England (over the big pond), but I had traveled to Europe before, and would do so again.

She smiled and laughed, signed my photo, and handed it back to me. She then said, "Sure, that would be great. We should go out sometime." My heart jumped, although my own cerebral dose of reality said to me, "Don't be stupid. She's a major rock star, in England no doubt, and you are just a guy with a camera barely surviving in California. No matter, I thought. She had agreed and smiled at me, and that was good enough for me. Even if it was just for an ego boost to a fan, she had made my day.

Kelly eventually left the band a year later, and eventually moved to Los Angeles - much closer to me. Unfortunately, I didn't know that until a few years after that, when she had moved back to England. Somehow, I was always a few yards behind her, so to speak.

Eventually I started KAOS2000 Magazine and started doing interviews with celebrities and such. After chatting with the guitarist in Venom, I got an email and a call from former Venom bassist Tony Dolan - who himself had just starred in "Master And Commander" with Russell Crowe. As Tony and I talked, somehow the subject of Girlschool came up, and of course I had to mention Kelly - her being that unobtainable love interest of fantasy to me.

This was around 2004. Tony then told me the news, how he knew Kelly's good friend, and had heard about Kelly's fight with cancer. She wasn't doing very well, I was told, although she was tough enough to have better days along with the worse. I was stunned. I had to get to England immediately. I had always wanted to see her and chat with her again.

I told Tony the story of how we had met and I had asked her out, and how I always remembered her. He laughed and said that he would pass my message along to her.

Around that time, I had gone through my old photos and found my pics of Girlschool and I backstage in 1983. I took one of the photos out of the album and it flipped over. I had never seen the back of this photo. Written on the back was a note with "Kelly" with her phone number. She hadn't just signed my photos, she had taken me seriously and given me her number. What an idiot I had been for never looking on the other side. It was 21 years later now - and she was very sick.

Tony called me back a few days later and had a message for me. Kelly had remembered me from 1983. She smiled when she was told the story, and from what I was told, the story had made her day. She was surprised and happy that I had still remembered her from those shows and still thought of her. Tony said that it might be possible for me to talk with her on the phone, or maybe see her, if she gets a bit better, and that she would be happy to do so.

Before I could make any plans as such - I got to join Kelly in her problems, as I got cancer myself. Leukemia put me in the hospital, and I couldn't do anything for a while, let alone make plans to travel out of the country. So I would wait it out, if she could. During the last year and a half, I had so looked forward to going to England to visit her, or at least get to chat with her on the phone. I didn't know how things were progressing with her.

Then yesterday night, my friend Rytchie called me to bear the news - Kelly Johnson had died earlier in the day. The cancer had taken its toll and she couldn't hang on any longer. And now, I have the most awful empty feeling. Most of my want to go to Europe just faded. I won't get that chance to say Hello or wish her well. And we won't get a chance to laugh about the photos or meeting during the heavy metal heydays. At least I have some friends out there whom I can share this with, and through this, they can now know who she was. Memory is immortality.

After losing some friends and family myself, and with the world in ever-chaos and turmoil on a daily basis, I had become almost immune to death. I've even come to praise it in certain ways. Even with my own illnesses, I definitely haven't cried over much in many years. But - I did shed a tear last night. I didn't really know her, short of a couple of days hanging out two decades ago, but it was just that bond that people (especially musicians) can form when meeting even just once - that can last a lifetime. But yesterday, someone's lifetime ended.

The moral of the story is - we go to visit sick family and friends, and we feel for them, and for ourselves. But sometimes we forget the friends we may have left behind - by accident, or just changes in life, or whatnot. It's good to go back and rekindle. It's better to do it when you think of it - not after it becomes an afterthought of "I wish I could have seen him or her one last time." We all have lives to live and have moved on, but looking back and saying Hello to someone who might need it at the right time is just as important.

Having cancer sucks....

I had recently mentioned in my previous blog that I had gone to San Diego Comic Con, and gotten sick there. Well, I'm here to tell you finally what really happened...

I started with a sore throat when I got to San Diego. What I didn't know was that this was the beginning signs of something more drastic than simply strep throat or pharyngitis (which I had been diagnosed as having).

On Fri., July 29, I had gone to my doctor's for another visit, and a random blood test. I had been hoping to fly to Los Angeles the next day and then come back that night. Friday afternoon, I got a very distressed phone call from my doctor begging me to not get on the airplane in the morning or, I would "not come home, ever". How true that could have been. I was checked into the hospital immediately that Fri. evening and felt myself physically sinking lower. It turned out that I had almost NO white blood cells, NO platelets (that help your blood clot), and was getting anemic And my blood count was dropping by the hour. Literally, I was dying as I stood.

For three days, no one could figure out what was wrong with me. They kept me pumped with antibiotics and transfusions. On Saturday morning, I seriously did not think I would make it through the following Monday. They were worried about my getting a fever, infection, or starting to bleed out. Well, as it happened, I did get a slight fever, and my nose started bleeding for over two days. As I write this, it has slowed down. I was a bit scared, to put it honestly. But worse, I had a few very close friends who were even more traumatized by what they heard. No one could believe that someone like myself, Mr. Get-Up-And-Go, who lived active and overworked, could ever get so sick, and so suddenly.

They took a bone marrow biopsy (no fun stroll in the park, I tell you), and finally found out what happened to me by this Monday, Aug. 1. It turned out that I had Leukemia. But they were not sure what type yet. I was given a 75% chance of recovery - meaning that it could recur, or cause other cancers later. On Tues. Aug. 2, they had it figured out. I have a subset of AML Leukemia called Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia.

Now, here's where the clincher, and the fun part begins. Of course, I would now have a new chapter to my life's adventures. It turns out that I have a form of Leukemia that (as my doctor told me) "If you had to have any form of Leukemia, this would be the one you want to have." It is a very rare type, and happens to be the easiest to treat. AND... has a 90% cure rate (meaning, no coming back). Also, it is not inherited, so I can still have kids later with no fear of transmission... provided I make it through.

They are trying to control my bleeding currently, and I am already being treated. Another strange portion of the story... instead of bombarding me with two or more major forms of chemotherapy, it is treated with ONE chemo drug cocktail (a rather milder form) for eight days, and... a derivative of Vitamin A. Still a cocktail, but not nearly as bad. I may or may not still lose my hair, but whatever.

So here I sit in the hospital for the next four weeks hoping that it all works and my recovery is healthy. I have a pretty good mindset that it will all work out. I've got way too much to do out there to call it quits yet.

I just wanted to let everyone know what's been going on with me. And to those of you who got my rather cryptic emails about going to the hospital, I am not dead yet, but only had some scares along the way in the past few days. Now I am chipper, upbeat, and ready to have my ass kicked a bit so that I can kick ass back and get this beat, and get back out there with everyone.

Wish me luck and I appreciate all the well-wishing's, prayers, and thoughts.

See you soon!

PS... I will be checking my emails as well so that I don't just sit around bored.
(For more on what happens, check my other blog - Leuk I Am Your Cancer

Swollen, hot, and red (my day wasn't as bad as the other guy's)

So after all my adventures traveling in inclement weather recently... what did I get to remember it all by (no, I mean after all the cool freebies and stuff that I collected)...

I ended up with a majorly swollen leg.
My right leg swelled up twice its size, was bright red, hot to the touch, and felt like it was going to burst out of its skin.
Did I mention the immense pain?

The hospital thought I might have a blood clot and took it very seriously. As it turned out, I had cellulitis (not the fat butt thing), which is an infection of soft tissue. It can be caught in any manner of ways, and is the most common infection.

I sat waiting in the hospital for 8 HOURS - from 2 am until finally being seen and released at 10 am.

The official diagnosis was Cellulitis of the Leg. Done.

As I'm about to leave, I overhear the nurses talk about the next guy who is coming into my room.
"He's been waiting over 12 hours.", one nurse said.
She continued, "Poor guy has Cellulitis of the Penis."
ARGGHHH!!!!

I thought to what my ordeal for the past whole week had been before being seen... and then waiting 8 hours when I couldn't take it anymore. This guy had been sitting there in agony - in a much more tender area - for 12 hours!

Suddenly, my problems just didn't seem so important anymore.
I thought I would just go home and know that I am being treated.

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As an added note: I'm driving home and think out loud... That man's penis... swollen to twice its normal size... hot to the touch... feeling like it's going to burst out of its skin. Hmmmm... Don't men pay good money for pills to give the same effect? I'm sure I've seen it advertised on TV.

But the bright red part? I wouldn't want a dog's organ either. Nor the pain involved.
"Oh well." I thought.