Quality Shoe

This is a tough one. 
Since my first diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in October of 2009 the realities of this disease have hit me, but usually from afar.   Just under a month ago we lost a good man to this disease, a man who I had the pleasure to meet and share a laugh only ALL patients can.  This tribute goes out to a good man whose memorial service was held on Sunday September 4th.   It was also his birthday.   
I met Andrei Bazdyrev in January of 2011 when my cancer had relapsed and Andrei was in the hospital going through Chemo-therapy.   I noticed Andrei walking the halls of the tenth floor cancer ward at St. Joseph's, a place too many of us learn too well.   For the first time in my visits to a few hospitals I thought I detected a kindred spirit.   You do a lot of walking and thinking when you reside on the 10th floor of St. Joseph's in Tacoma, or on the 8th floor at the University of Washington Medical Center.   Most of the patients at least give it the old college try to keep active and walk a bit.   A lot of the patients spend more time with family or are bed ridden due to the difficulties of a lot of the cancers.   Andrei was different, I saw him walking at the same clip and as much on day one as day four.  Another lesson that comes from hospitalizations is that most patients and family prefer privacy.  I will admit that I fall into that "prefer privacy" world myself, maybe for different reasons.    Deep down though I secretly hoped for some human contact with fellow patients to be able to discuss our cancer experience, heck even politics or religion would have been O.K.   Sometimes it takes divine intervention to intercede.   Let's just say that the intervention occurred and we met.   In our first meeting I discovered Andrei was going through the same Hyper C-Vad chemo for the same rare cancer that I was fighting.   He was already very educated about treatment options, bone marrow transplant, and alternative medicine.   We continued to talk after one of us left the floor, it seemed we alternated our residency.   I remember the joy when Andrei introduced us to Stephanie and reported that there was only a small amount of residual disease- he was going down the road to a bone marrow transplant and probably the best chance for long term remission or cure.   Then it happened.   The disease took over quickly, blasts killed good cells, and Andrei was gone.   There are other diseases, accidents, and many good people leave us way too early.   If there is any silver lining with today's posting, it is that there is always a chance to leave a legacy.   Andrei's gifts were shared with all who attended his memorial service, listened to his music, cared for him as only St. Joseph's nurses and staff can, or had the pleasure to meet or work with him during his life.   We can all learn from Andrei.    It's all about how we treat people.  In the meantime check out Andrei (on the right, recorded in July 2011) and friend singing about one of the obvious truisms out there...