Newswise — One year to the day after Charlie Lustman learned he had cancer, he turned to the medicine he knew best: music.
The result was a dozen songs on an album called "Made Me Nuclear," which traces the tale of his personal battle with cancer, from the phone call giving him the news of his diagnosis to his heartfelt thanks to all who supported him through his journey to recovery.
"Do what you love is the theme of the album," said Lustman, a professional musician who has been enjoying remission since April 2007 from the rare bone cancer that attacked his jaw. "Don't wait for your life to take a strange turn. Now is the time you should take control and do what you love."
Lustman performed several of his songs at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as part of its annual Cancer Survivors Day program, "Celebrating Survival: The Cancer Experience," on July 31. More than 200 survivors and family members attended the event, which also featured inspiring speeches from three cancer survivors who received treatment at the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute.
Lustman was diagnosed with an osteosarcoma in his left upper jaw bone on March 1, 2006. Only about 30 people a year in the United States are diagnosed with this specific cancer. After searching for specialists, Lustman found Dr. Charles Forscher, an oncologist and medical director of the Sarcoma Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute.
As part of a diagnostic test, Lustman was injected with a radioactive isotope " inspiring the song "Made Me Nuclear." He also underwent two surgeries that removed three-quarters of his upper jaw to eradicate his cancer followed by a year of chemotherapy. It was during his treatment he wrote his album.
"He always had this sense that he was going to get through this, and that he wanted to give something back," Forscher said.
Forscher said that Lustman's cancer is especially rare in adults " it's usually found in children and young adults, and usually occurs around the knee.
Lustman will be taking his music to clinics and hospitals all over the country to share his uplifting music with thousands of others coping with cancer. The album's dozen tracks are filled with sincerity, emotion and humor. The album takes him from the "nuclear" diagnostic test he received at the Cedars-Sinai Outpatient Cancer Center in the lower level of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, to the hospital's third floor where his baby girl was born during the course of his treatment, inspiring the song "Just When I Needed You."
"My story is my story," Lustman says. "I don't want to preach or give any advice. I never really related a lot to that kind of art. I want to let people take whatever they want from it " I'm having fun."
Lustman's chemotherapy ended in April 2007, and a prosthetic mouth piece was made for him, allowing him to be able to speak and sing again. He calls it a miracle that after everything he endured, he was able to write, arrange, produce and sing this new body of work. His performance at Cedars-Sinai will serve as a kick-off to his national tour.
The Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center focuses on combining compassionate, high-quality patient-centered care with pioneering cancer research and treatment.
For more information on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, call 1-800-CEDARS-1 or visit http://www.cedars-sinai.edu.
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