Taking Care of Business

Just a quick lit­tle post to let you know what’s going on. First of all, I had a blast this week. Here’s the scoop.

For one, my wife Sylvie has just com­pleted her final of eight chemo ses­sions last Thurs­day. It’s been a really tough five months, but thank­fully, we’re done. There’s a bit of a break before radi­a­tion treat­ments start.

But for now, it’s a huge relief and a much-​​needed break.

The tough­est part of it all is, chemo truly knocks the wind out of Sylvie for a few days after­wards. Aside from the com­mon side-​​effects of nau­sea, exhaus­tion, bone pain and hair­loss, Sylvie also often com­plains of “chemo brain.”

It’s when your mind seems foggy, and you have a hard time con­cen­trat­ing or remem­ber­ing things. But it only lasts for a few days fol­low­ing chemo. (The best part is, we’re finally done.)

How­ever, the chemo ward got a lit­tle surprise…

You see, in the chemo ward at the Ottawa Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal Can­cer Cen­tre, there are over 40 beds, each flanked by an intra­venous machine. (Every time we’re there, all the beds are busy through­out the day. It’s amaz­ing to me to see how many peo­ple suf­fer from this dread­ful dis­ease. Sad, really.)

Any­way, at the end of the hall near the exit, there’s an old bell hang­ing on the wall, with a dan­gling cord. When patients leave after their last chemo treat­ment, tra­di­tion says that they must ring the bell.

I’ve been there with my wife, by her side, with each ses­sion, where a ses­sion can last up to 6 hours. (It makes for a long day, let me tell you.)

Dur­ing each ses­sion, we hear the bell ring at least 2–3 times. The entire ward — nurses, doc­tors, patients and all — break into applause. It’s quite an event. And it also gave Sylvie some­thing to look for­ward to. (She couldn’t wait when it’d be her turn!)

Some peo­ple ring it only slightly. Oth­ers, with one big clang. Well, Sylvie is def­i­nitely not the timid type. (In fact, the nurses call her the “fire­bug” because she’s always fun­spir­ited, pos­i­tive and energetic.)

Well, when it was Sylvie’s turn this last Thurs­day, the moment we’ve all been wait­ing for had finally arrived. And all I can say is, she didn’t hold back. She rang the bell so loud, it could have woken up the entire hos­pi­tal! (The nurses turned to me, whis­per­ing, “Is she always like this?” “Yup! Always,” I replied.)

But here’s some­thing else that hap­pened this week.

Colin Arthur Wiebe is an Inter­net mar­keter. He owns sev­eral web­sites as well as his own mar­ket­ing com­pany. He’s been one of my fol­low­ers for a long time. And yes­ter­day, he con­tacted me out of the blue.

You see, Colin is not only a mar­keter. (He does it part time.) He’s a pro­fes­sional musi­cian. Tour­ing exten­sively, he plays in his own band as well as the Randy Bach­man band.

Yes, that Randy Bach­man.

You know, Bach­man Turner Over­drive, Guess Who, and more. And Randy’s band just so hap­pened to be in town last night to kick off the Win­ter­lude fes­tiv­i­ties. (Win­ter­lude is Ottawa, Canada’s equiv­a­lent of Mardi Gras.)

Since Colin knew I was in Ottawa, he con­tacted me, ask­ing me to meet with him over cof­fee. “Sure,” I said. So we met at Star­bucks down­town just two hours prior to the band going on stage for a sound check.

We talked busi­ness. We talked mar­ket­ing. And we cer­tainly talked music. Colin is an extremely tal­ented musi­cian, with many CDs under his belt. (Colin has played with the likes of Kid Rock, Alice Cooper, Neil Young, Three Dog Night, The Doo­bie Broth­ers and The Lit­tle River Band, among others.)

Here’s the inter­est­ing bit. Colin also recorded a song, called “Ride of Your Life,” for the Cana­dian Can­cer Soci­ety. And as a gift, he gave me a copy of the song on CD for my wife.

(He’s a true gen­tle­man, through and through.)

But there’s an even “cooler” part to this story.

Colin’s gig was only about a lit­tle over an hour long, fol­lowed by a “press” party for cor­po­rate spon­sors — like Amer­i­can Express, for exam­ple. (It would be an early night any­way, since he had to leave very early the next morn­ing for another gig in Vancouver.)

He asked me to join him as a VIP at the Randy Bach­man Band show at Win­ter­lude, fol­lowed by the party. I had to refuse since my own band, Jaded Way, had a gig at one of the local water­ing holes, The Car­leton Tavern.

I felt bad because I would have loved to have joined them. But Colin was kind enough to extend the invi­ta­tion, and that alone was pretty impres­sive to me.

Any­way, I left Star­bucks on my way to get­ting ready for my own gig. We had a lot of work to do (unlike Colin’s band, and as part-​​time musi­cians, we are our own road­ies and trans­port all of our equip­ment ourselves).

Our band played to a packed house. Stan­dard Fri­day night at the good ol’ Car­leton. And it was fun, as usual.

But then, we were in for a sur­prise, too.

Right at the end of the sec­ond set, in walks Colin, two of his friends and Randy Bachman’s nephew, Brax­ton Pax­ton (who plays gui­tar with his band)!

Yup, I was stunned.

After the set ended, I intro­duced them to the rest of my band, and we had a good time. Talk­ing about music, instru­ments, the gig, etc. You know, musi­cian stuff. But it didn’t stop there.

We asked them to come up on stage and join us for a few songs. And they agreed! Colin got behind the key­boards while Brax­ton Pax­ton picked up the gui­tar. We played, albeit com­pletely unre­hearsed, songs like “Amer­i­can Woman” (by the Guess Who), “Takin’ Care of Busi­ness” (by BTO) and a whal­ing, extended ren­di­tion of “Mus­tang Sally.”

The crowd went nuts!

Colin is quite a show­man. He had the crowd danc­ing, clap­ping, singing along, scream­ing, stomp­ing, jump­ing, you name it! (And when they ended, peo­ple were clam­or­ing for his auto­graph. It was an awe­some night all around.)

Too bad Sylvie couldn’t make it, since her chemo was a day ear­lier and exhaus­tion, cou­pled with “chemo brain,” were mak­ing their usual appear­ances. She would have loved to, I’m sure. But thank good­ness it’s the last time, though!

Nev­er­the­less, Colin topped off a won­der­ful week with a cel­e­bra­tion of life, love and good times — those had and cer­tainly those to come. (And yes, many, many more are com­ing, that’s for sure.)

Thank you, Colin. You guys made the band’s night (and cer­tainly the crowd’s, too). And you cer­tainly made Sylvie’s week.

We were truly hon­ored. Again, thank you.

About the Author

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