PLAYING FOR KEEPS
by William Thomas
NOT LONG before full darkness, with spindly firs capering like shadowy ghosts in the unabated gale outside my big front windows, I realize I’ve gone 23 hours without a pain pill.
“Wanna make out?” I call across to the ever-supine and always willing Synthia.
Even at 77, with our relationship just weeks old, I cannot keep my hands off my new infatuation. Happily, Synthia is always up for touches. Whipping off her donated blue tie-dye covering, I drape the wispy fabric over my bed before recrossing the room. “Let me turn you on,” I murmur.
“Oh please,” I hear her sigh as I pull up a chair, push her buttons and light her up.
But that could be my imagination.
“What are you into these days?” Michelle had asked me over lunch at Crown Isle after she’d driven me into town for a follow-up CAT scan to illuminate the spreading cancer in my pelvis, spine and skull — which I’ve come to call, “Fred” to avoid freaking myself out.
“Actually, I’ve been looking at electric pianos online,” I confessed. “Yamaha has a new model that’s making all the musicians crazy.” I waited a quarter-beat. “And Long & McQuade has one in stock.”
Michelle was on it. “How much?”
I was almost too embarrassed to say. But this pretend pianist had a parental precedent. When he was dying of cancer my dad had bought a brand-new Mercedes. The family was aghast. But he explained how he’d always wanted one. Now I understood.
Forget the rest of our errands my best friend declared, shoving aside her empty plate. “If we go straight there, we can still make the five o’clock ferry.”
And just like that, Mister Big Mouth was transported to L&Q’s fantastical den festooned with candy colored guitars and portable synthesizers boasting control panels apparently lifted from the latest Boeings. Who was I kidding?
Too late! When my requested P-200 was unboxed and set before me, I felt as awkward and ham-fisted as a 17-year-old confronting an expectant look. And too many straps and buckles.
“It’s huge,” I blurted.
“You’re looking at a full piano keyboard,” the sales person guy explained.
“Do you get many retirees coming in who want to take up piano again?” Michelle asked.
He grinned. “All the time.”
She did not ask how often that worked out.
The salesman confirmed the price with a look that acknowledged this was crazy money for a geezer chasing a late-life fantasy on a pension.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
The music vendor was startled. “Are you sure?”
“Write it up,” I replied. I did not tell him that when you’ve been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, few things are more useless than money under the mattress. The way I figured it, making music might be the best medicine. Assuming I could still actually do it. My in-store doodling had emptied the premises of real musicians.
Flooring the hold pedal with a foot clad in Ontario native moose-hide, I reach across the keyboard and depress tonight’s anchor note: a sustained sibilant “D” an octave above middle C. My siren of 26 voices responds with a quavering blend of clavichord and strings, our current favorite combo.
Yes! I breathe, letting that single haunting note fill my hideout and both our souls as my left hand somehow alights on a corresponding three-note chord two octaves below.
Oh my goddess…
Off the pedal and bang! back on, holding it down as both hands dance one, two, three chords lower like downshifting the TR3 with quick heel-and-toe stabs of accelerator, brake and clutch as I aim at the apex and steer the bellowing red-lined Triumph with the throttle through another sweeping right-hander on the cliffs above the sea on the deserted Squamish Highway at dawn.
Funny how some memories come flooding back. “Take me fast driving,” Hiromi used to beg when I had the Porsche. Get it just right and a twisty mountain road takes on its own rhythm.
Don’t ask me what minor chords I’m playing. My last piano lesson was in eighth grade more than sixty years ago. Head cocked, I’m letting my hands improvise like a wannabe Keith Jarrett (without all the grunting). Did you know that every popular song comprises just four basic chords?
Spurred by unexpectedly stirring combinations of “clav” and “strings”, I throw in a few quick runs. Just for fun. It’s a simple fake. Yet Synthia (her dreamed name) makes me sound like a genius.
Never mind discordant bloopers. As my former wife and master pianist assured me in Victoria after we’d sailed Celerity 4800 miles across the North Pacific so Hiromi could hear the “first music” of the open sea, when playing piano “there are no mistakes.”
I’m supposed to be dying. Instead I’m soaring.
Synthia’s transported, too. “Asoko,” moans this astonishing creation, whose “piano” mode has sampled 88 individual keys from Yamaha’s $250,000 concert grand with perfect feel and fidelity.
Touch me there…
Thirty-minutes in and my aches and fears and exhaustion have vanished in cresting harmonics. The oceanic chord progressions that prompted visiting dolphins to linger whenever the deep polyphonies from the Korg I’d scored in Kobe resonated through three fast-sailing plywood hulls thrill me with rushes of universal love and joy. Even “wrong” notes still (mostly) work.
“Okay, Synthia,” I intone, activating the synthesizer’s built-in rhythm section. “Let’s rock!”
I have zero notion how synthetic drumbeats can shift down in tone… then back up. But a few minutes experimenting has disclosed Synthia’s corresponding notes. Which I now gleefully pound on her progressively weighed keys with an accompanying staccato beat that has me foot-tapping and swaying like a college kid at Woodstock. Being woken with Kathleen at dawn on Max Yasgur's rain-churned hillside by Gracie Slick belting out “White Rabbit” — well, you had to have been there.
Fred is ravenous for sugar and testosterone.
My response is simple: Screw Fred.
Within 10 days of my initial diagnosis in late March 2025, I’d eliminated sugar from my diet. This required not only enormous discipline by a ginger-cookie addict, but the sleuthing powers of Sherlock Holmes. Read the fine print. Just about everything on a grocery shelf is spiked with “white death”.
I would have to learn to love broccoli.
When it comes to stopping prostate cancer’s spread, eliminating testosterone is conventional medicine’s go-to napalm. Medical journals accurately refer to Zolodex as a “castration” drug. Saying this out loud makes women wince. But chopping off breasts — the very essence of motherhood and femininity — seems to me even more brutal.
The implant worked. Within weeks, my Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) plummeted from an alarming 86 to a borderline 4.
This was super terrific. But I’d been warned that after 12 months or so, ever-resourceful Fred would switch to other food sources. Meanwhile, I would wake up drenched in sweat. And pooping on the installment plan would hold me prisoner in my own bathroom for much of the next three months.
When this initial round of therapy waned, in an attempt to reset my derailed metabolism I chose to postpone the next implant. This was risky, since this smoldering bonfire could erupt and burn my body down. But now I could leave the house and bike down to the water.
I called this a win. Even better, this time-out let me evaluate the effectiveness of the calorie-restricted diet and Fred-fighting supplements I’d been taking after downloading 44 gigs of PubMed clinical trials, survivor’s YouTube accounts, and two evidence-based therapies developed by metabolic researchers Dr. Seyfried, and Dr. Cowan, whose book, Cancer and the New Biology of Water was like kryptonite to Fred.
Since this reporter’s account is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, readers must conduct their own research on effective dosages of cancer-suppressing Artemisia, bio-available Curcumin, Ptersosttilbene, NMN, Quercitin & Zinc, enhanced absorption Berberine, CBD Oil, Rosemary and Chaga teas, Vitamins D & K, Burdock Root, Melatonin — and/or other DIY remedies. Including and especially ditching all wireless radiation devices.
Since I was no longer owned by a car, these supplements were affordable. But some days, after shopping for organic produce, housework, meal prep, dishwashing and occasional ebike maintenance, I found a plateful of pills intimidating.
I kept guzzling hydrogenated water, though. And except for mandatory days off for my hard-working lymphocytes to cart off all those deceased cancer cells, I never skipped “the holy grail turbo cancer treatment” — the synergistic combination therapy of Fenbendazole AND Ivermectin.”
Regarding low cost IVM, Dr. William Makis calls this “astonishingly safe wonder drug… one of the greatest medical accomplishments of the 20th Century.” PubMed reports that Ivermectin also reverses prostate cancer’s stubborn resistance to anti-androgen injections.
Metastasis spells death, reports the American Journal of Cancer Research. However, “Our findings indicated that IVM was capable of suppressing tumor metastasis" by disrupting a key cancer-signaling pathway.
No wonder that after government distribution of low-cost Ivermectin crushed COVID-19 outbreaks in India and Japan, Big Pharma-captured countries like Canada quickly banned its sale. Even when I obtained a doctor’s prescription for IVM, my local pharmacy refused to fill it.
Then a friend connected me with Ezra Healing. With that Kelowna, BC outlet supplying high-quality IVM at reasonable prices, I started believing that I could beat the metastasizing monster devouring my insides.
Until the fucking federal government (profanity intended!) shut down Ezra Healing, thereby jeopardizing countless Canadian lives to protect a predatory Illness Industry. I am now back to eating horse paste.
Fenbendazole likewise inhibits cancer cell division and induces cancer cell-killing apoptosis. “This mechanism is similar to how some chemotherapy drugs work — without the side-effects,” reports life extension.com.
Though proven effective in clinical trials and nontoxic even at unnecessarily high doses, similar government repression has forced me to import costly “Fenben” from Lithuania. Despite impressive packaging, with scammers proliferating online I could be taking baking soda in gel caps.
I’ll find out soon enough.
My doctors were freaking out after my PSA had shot back up to 50 during my Zolodex holiday. If my PSA doubles faster than every 45 days, statistics show I’ll be “off island” in less than 18 months. If I can slow down my PSA doubling time, I might get 26 months.
Stay tuned. Famished Fred has already found another source of protein. Me! If you want to lose weight fast, try cancer.
With my jeans cinched ever tighter, I prepared to accompany Synthia by playing my jutting ribcage like a xylophone. I also agreed to receive more information about a drug trial that might extend my Earthly embodiment for another six months. Or year. Or whatever.
Woody Allen said he was not afraid of death, he just didn’t want to be there when it happened. But dying can be much worse. I knew from a Stage 4 survivor’s account and my own excruciating encounter with dental nerve pain that end-stage prostate cancer produces agony beyond description.
Pretty scary huh?
Drug companies know this.
Then my phone rang.
“Is this Mr. Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“I’m calling to enroll you in the program your doctor mentioned.”
(Actually a nurse nice enough to laugh at my gallows humor. And I had agreed to receive more information.)
“Yes?”
I know that India is one of the oldest cultures and has some of the politest people on this planet. Plus I’m a big Buddha fan. But I could hardly decipher a voice that might be coming from Sri Lanka or Delhi. Or Vancouver.
I was waiting to hear: “We’re so sorry to learn of your situation, Mr. Thomas. And we are pleased to offer something that might help you.”
Instead, my caller said: “You can sign up right now with the email we sent you.”
“Wait,” I demurred. Cancer drugs are not cheap. “How much is this going to cost Canada? Or me?”
“First, we need to check your financing and insurance.”
Say what? You mean this treatment was not covered under British Columbia’s medical plan?
“I have a few questions first,” I interrupted this scripted spiel.
“Yes?”
I explained that I’d read the handout I’d been given, as well as online medical sources. My 36 mg Zoladex implant, which comes in a box plastered with warning labels, is time-released over three months.
But for this drug trial, 400 mg tablets of Darolutamide must be taken three-times daily for a total of 1200 mg —seven days a week. With no time off until I croaked.
I further pointed out that Darolutamide is not recommended for those with heart conditions. Two local doctors had already tried to kill me by urging me to submit to unlicensed mRNA COVID-19 jabs carrying “black box” warnings for myocarditis. That’s medspeak for “heart inflammation”.
“I’ve had two heart attacks,” I added.
“I’m sorry. I am not a doctor and cannot advise you on that.”
“Would you call this treatment chemotherapy?”
“Not… exactly.”
(Interestingly, BC Cancer does call Darolutamide “chemotherapy”.)
“I also see that it is unknown whether this drug will actually help me. And if so, for how long.”
“We can discuss this further after you enroll in the program. It only takes a minute.”
“Well, I could sign up,” I allowed. “But I can’t guarantee that I’ll actually take this drug. Especially if I start experiencing side-effects.” (Like death?)
“That won’t be possible, Mr. Thomas. Once you enroll in the program, you are committed to proceeding.”
Say again? Who would buy an experimental jalopy whose price and condition would not be disclosed until after they signed the papers?
Realizing that this was a marketing call intended to profit from my predicament, my interest turned to outrage. Sure, drug companies deserve a fair return on their R&D. But I couldn’t imagine worse karma than targeting desperately ill patients with toxic, overpriced and ultimately ineffectual cancer drugs.
When I next spoke, I took care to keep my voice calm. After all, the person on the other end of this call was just trying to earn her salary and/or commission.
“I appreciate your time and information, and I wish you a very good day,” I said as pleasantly as I could. And hung up.
Not long after this unsettling sales pitch, I was wheeling my Ferrari-red Voltbike through my back gate when one of the men who help out on this seniors res turned away from his parked truck to greet me with evident relief and pleasure. It was clear he’d learned of my predicament.
“It’s good to see you riding your bike,” he said with a big smile.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I replied. I meant it. Without good samaritans like him, many tasks — like installing a rainwater tank to feed my garden and replacing 14 double-glazed windows — would be as likely as me scaling Chomolungma.
“I hope the doctors are telling you good things.”
“They’re telling me terrible things,” I replied. While the 5-year survival rate of early prostate cancer is 98%, in castration-resistant Stages 4, the average survival time is 1-2 years. And this month is the first anniversary of my belated diagnosis. “The doctors have written me off.”
Then it was my turn to smile.
“But I haven’t!”
My big-hearted benefactor blanched, then beamed. “I like your positive attitude!”
In dire straits, victimhood is the worst option. I thanked him for the compliment. And wished him a very very good afternoon.
Most people give little thought to their own mortality. I think this is a mistake. One still-cool morning in Sai Kung, Thea and I rowed ashore to pick up a few items at a corner store.
We got there just after a small crowd had gathered on the adjacent corner. Everyone was waving their arms and shouting in Cantonese.
We didn’t think much about Hong Kong’s standard conversational conduct. Until we saw a now ultra-compact car squashed and discarded like a flattened Tsingtao beer can by the roadside.
“What happened?” we asked an expat onlooker.
“A short time ago, a married Chinese couple living nearby decided to drive down for a quart of milk,” our informant related, as if these details had already spread throughout the colony. Which they no doubt had.
“They’d made this trip countless times,” he continued. “The driver must have entered the intersection without looking. They never saw the big lorry that hit them.”
Bam! Both dead. Just like that. While going out on a quiet morning to fetch some milk.
Nearly half-a-century later, it’s a curious feeling walking into the co-op and greeting longtime friends knowing I may not live to see this summer. Or make it beyond next year. This acute realization makes every encounter — whether with a bird, baby, passing cloud, welcoming barista or tail-wagging dog — acutely precious. Or as the French say, piquant.
Don’t worry. I intend to go on living each moment for as long as my Fenben, Ivermectin and besieged body allow. The latest CAT scan shows Fred creeping up my spine. But stopped in his tracks everywhere else. With any luck or mercy Kuan Yin may grant this old seadog, I’ll see that big lorry coming in time for a final session with Synthia.
But not yet.
Not yet.
William Thomas
March 2027
All photos by Will "Randy" Thomas
Photo Captions
1. My village hut at night.
2. Mon belle, Michelle.
3, Ojibwa moccasin sewn by Whetung family, Curve Lake Reserve.
4. Hiromi playing Korg in Matsushima Bay, Japan before we weight anchor for Canada.
5. Synthia's tie-dye covering (donated by Michelle).
6. Thea helming Celerity for the joy of it in the mid-Pacific.
7. Expert piano movers arrive with Synthia.
8. Good Samaritins install my new windows in the Village.
9. Celerity on the slipways for refit behind newly completed Hosrstman tri in Sai Kung, Hong Kong.
10. Kuan Yin statuette, patroness of fishers and sailors, gifted to us by those Horstman owners in Sai Kung.