Coffee with All4Cure - Mike (1/4)

As a music teacher for thirty-five years, I taught music from Kindergarten through twelfth grade, most of my career was with the Anchorage School District. My primary job was to teach high school band and in the evenings of the pre-pandemic world, I performed with the Anchorage Symphony as the principal tuba player. My degrees in music are from Western Washington University in Bellingham. My passions and profession revolve around music and sharing music with students. Coming from a musical family, it felt natural to pursue a career in that field.

When I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma, I stayed in Anchorage for six months to undergo chemotherapy with plans to fly to Seattle later to receive a stem cell transplant. I left Alaska for Seattle in 2015 before the school year started. The plan was for a substitute teacher to begin the school year and run the high band program for a maximum time of three months. But since cancer isn’t entirely predictable, things didn’t work out quite as planned.

After arriving in Seattle and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, (SCCA) I soon learned that my stay would be extended to seven months and eventually eight and a half months. Due to the aggressiveness of my myeloma, I would not receive just one stem cell transplant, but two. First the autologous transplant (with my own stem cells) and later an allogeneic transplant using donor cells. While in Seattle my mood was frequently lifted by cards and letters, 90% of which were from my high school students. They seemed to care deeply for my health and it lifted me through many days and nights of sickness.

When I finally returned to Alaska in late February of 2016, my doctors strongly urged me to stay away from schools. With a weakened immune system, the slightest bug or cold could be devastating. With the utmost respect for my fantastic physicians, that was one doctor suggestion I could not follow. I did go back into the classroom not long after my second transplant. One thing my doctors couldn’t know was that my high school students were not just ordinary, confused adolescent teens. They were mostly the finest people I have ever known. They looked out for each other and I knew they would look out for me as well. I asked for an eight-foot bubble around me at all times. They understood that my life actually depended on it. They not only complied with this but any student who approached me was quickly scolded by other students and told to back off. From March to the end of the school year, I didn’t catch one cold or bug. I truly put my life in their hands and they exceeded expectations. The real reason for not complying with doctors’ orders (which I would never recommend) was a very personal battle with a disease that seemed to want to dictate what I could and could not do and it was affecting the lives of others. I refused to let myeloma keep my students without their teacher. There were concerts coming up and seniors to graduate. They were there for me and I had to be there for them. This was also going to be my last year before retirement. Leaving the classroom after a partial year due to cancer was also not an option so I taught the following entire year before retiring. That last year was very important to me and was another reminder that my students were wonderful people. Cancer certainly changed my life but I couldn’t let such an unmerciful and ugly disease affect the lives of my students.