PRS Guitars, the Cure for Cancer...

For anyone that doesn't know, right before I had gotten diagnosed with cancer, I had saved up to buy a new PRS guitar.  I had sold various things and was finally ready to make my new purchase.  When getting ready to go to the store, I saw two separate ads for people selling used PRS guitars and another brand I was wanting to try as well.  I realized if I bought used instead of new, I could get TWO guitars instead of one.  And we all know, two is twice as good as one.  I bought a PRS and the other brand.  Later when one of the other sellers finally got around to contacting me back and offered to sell me the other PRS.  I was enjoying the one I had, and still had a little bit of money saved, so I bought it as well.

As luck would have it, my surgery limited the amount of weight I could lift.  Those PRS guitars I bought were just under the weight limit and were how I passed much of the time recovering from surgery and chemo.  I decided to sell some more stuff I wasn't using on ebay (like parachute pants and a disco ball) and get a nice PRS guitar after I got well.  I didn't get the chance.  For the first Christmas after Chemo, my whole family got together and bought me one.  It was a gift I never expected to get and one of the first pics of my son were taken with him holding it.  A few days after Christmas, I walked into the music store with what little money I had been saving for a nice PRS (not nearly enough) and there sat the guitar that I had originally been saving up for in the first place, marked down drastically because it literally fell off of the back of a truck and chipped some paint.  Although, not nearly as nice as the one my family had just gotten me, I had just enough cash to cover it, and decided to make the PRS story come around full circle by buying the one that made me start the journey in the first place.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Paul Reed Smith and had gone over in my mind everything I was going to say and thank him for what was basically a coincidence, but it meant a lot to me.  All I managed to get out when I met him was my first name and I got too emotional to carry on any further.

Now I would say this is all review to my regular blog readers, but I can't imagine that anyone would actually come back to my page twice, it's really not that good, so that is what you have missed in the past.

As I said on my last post, I was expecting to be done with oncology visits and therefore done with cancer in May.  The nurses this past November told me it was customary to schedule something big to celebrate breaking free of the cancer stigma.  Paul Reed Smith was opening up the doors to the factory in June, just a few weeks after I was to be released, so that is the trip I planned for.  That is the trip that would bring everything full circle.  I started my cancer journey with PRS guitars, I would end it with a tour of the factory...except that didn't happen.  I didn't get released.  I got sentenced to an unknown number of years of continued monitoring.

I rolled into Maryland and on the PRS campus with a bittersweet feeling.  This was supposed to be a celebration of being free, instead it was a reminder that I am still going to oncology visits.  I am still a cancer patient.  I am still living under that threat that I am not free and clear.  

Now here is the thing.  Paul Reed Smith is an actual guy, not just some made up brand.  He's just a guy that likes playing guitars and tried to make a great guitar at good price.  He doesn't know any of this is going on.  And all I really wanted to do was say "thank you".  My wife came with me to a private event that was essentially for the PRS "fan club".  Paul was being very cordial and walking around to everyone talking to them, signing autographs, answering questions.  He was working the room and making his way over to us.  My wife was wanting him to come over, but I knew I wasn't ready.  It wasn't the man that was making me emotional, it was the whole process, the whole history.  I have had those PRS guitars for only about two weeks longer than I have been dealing with cancer.  The two are linked in my mind for eternity.  I can't separate the two.  One helped me survive the other.  I feel silly because it's just a hunk of wood and a little bit of metal, but that's where I spent my time and worked through my problems.  

As Paul got closer, I knew I couldn't say thanks this time either.  When you have had cancer, there are just certain things that trigger you memories and take you back to that time.  It could be a food, a phone call, a doctor's office whatever.  For me the flashbacks sometimes take me back to PRS guitars and or back to the urologist office when a guy I have just met asks me to drop my pants and starts playing with my ball.  Luckily that only happens in doctors' offices (or what I was led to believe was a doctor's office.  Fool me once...)  So as Paul got closer, and as my wife got more excited to tell him what I hadn't been able to, I just had everything flood back into my memory.  The cancer, the chemo, the celebration that didn't happen, and the seemingly endless years of monitoring.  I couldn't take it.  I walked out.  No explanation, I just walked around to the side of the factory where no one could see me.  I squatted in the grass.  I walked by the pond.  I messaged a good friend.  I did everything to try to distract me from what I was feeling.  It didn't work as well as I wanted.
I had decided I just needed to go through the factory alone.  My wife decided to get something signed by Paul for our son, since ultimately the PRS guitars will be his one day.  Cell service was non-existent in the factory and as soon as I emerged, my wife called me and asked where I was.  She had gotten the autograph for my son and told Paul that I wanted to say thanks.  Paul had recently had cancer affect people in his life and told her he knew exactly what I was going through and started searching for me.  She said she would bring me back to him.
She found me, and took me in the tent.  Paul had a line of people seeking autographs and I didn't want to interrupt.  All of a sudden, he looks up and sees my wife, whispers something to his assistant, and made a beeline for us.  I tried to keep it together.  All I needed to say was thanks, I knew I could do that much.  That is when he put his arm around me, told me what the people in his life had been through, and I broke down as he shared his pain.  I did manage to say thanks, but that was about it.  But that is what I needed to do.  I may have shown up for the wrong reason, but I still accomplished the original mission.  A week later, I watched Paul put on a presentation at another show.  I no longer had to say thanks.  I didn't go up to meet him with everyone else.  He knows my pain, I know his, and I finally got to say thanks.  Now I just need to learn how to play guitar halfway decent before the oncologist kicks me loose and everything will be complete.