Pierre & Save You
Jag tycker den låten är helt underbar, och jag tycker det är så otroligt fint att Pierre skrev den här låten till Jay, för att hedra honom, för att hedra hans kamp mot cancern, hans styrka. Amazing.
På Pierre's blogg på myspace skrev han och berättade om Save You och sin bror, så vill ni veta hela bakgrunden, läs detta:
" Thursday, January 24, 2008
Save you
A couple of days ago on the spinning wheel of news on www.simpleplan.com i talk about a song called save you.
I've received a few messages asking my about the song and what it's about. i guess i didn't realize that many of you were not aware of what exactly happened to my brother even though i've touched the subject in many interviews so I just wanted to let you all know the whole story.
A little over two years ago my brother Jay started feeling sick... He thought nothing of it but after a while he realized that his condition wasn't improving and decided to consult a doctor. After some extensive tests he was informed that he had non-hodgkins lymphoma cancer. He had a tumor the size of a baseball in his lymph nodes near the pelvis area. The doctors told him his cancer was a stage 4 which is pretty bad but that this type of cancer was very treatable and that basically if you were to have cancer, this is the one you "want" since it is usually cured with some chemotherapy.
He was immediately put under the care of one of Canada's top oncologists and started chemo therapy which consisted of him going to the hospital and sitting on a bed for a couple of hours every week while chemo was injected into his veins. The way that it works is like injecting poison into your blood stream to kill everything, good and bad cells, in hopes of wiping out all the bad ones so that eventually only non cancerous cells survive and regenerate themselves. Apparently you dont feel much, but the side effects come later. Nausea, vomiting, pain, eventually loss of hair etc etc... Jay was positive throughout the whole treatment and never showed any sign of weakness to everyone's surprise.
After those initial chemo-therapy sessions, he was sent home and told to stay away from people, restaurant foods and anything that might bring him in contact with outside germs because his immune system was rendered useless by the treatments. The slightest cold could cause a chain reaction of infections and complicate things and be very dangerous for his health. A few months later, after waiting for some test results, the doctor said that everything looked good and that the cancer cells were gone so obviously everyone was ecstatic! We all celebrated together and felt lucky that it was all over...
Little did we know that some cancer cells were basically just hiding. A short time after Jay was told that his battle was over, he felt another lump forming in his armpit and after some testing the doctors concluded that it was another tumor. Your lymph nodes are part of your blood system so it is not uncommon for the cancer to move around thus making it harder to pinpoint and to eliminate it.
Now the doctor was saying that the cancer was very aggressive and that chemo might not be enough to get rid of it. he would have to undergo a bone marrow transplant and was now told that he had 50/50 chance of surviving this cancer.
Needless to say, this was a tough reality to face for my entire family. My parents were devastated and so was I along with my oldest brother and everyone that knew Jay. You can't help but think: "This kinda shit doesn't happen!!! How is this possible at the age of 28??? This is the kinda thing you hear about in movies and sad tv shows, not in our lives!!" I can't really describe the sadness and frustration that we were all feeling, but still through all of this, Jay didn't show any sign of giving up.
In late november 2006, Jay checked into the hospital for his bone marrow transplant. Here is how it works:
Your bone marrow is what creates your blood cells. With today's technology, a bone marrow transplant consists of extreme sessions of chemo-therapy to the point where your bone marrow is completely drained and no longer capable of creating new blood cells. At that point the recipient is injected with a donor's blood stem cells that produce blood cells. In this case, both me and my oldest brother were compatible and the doctors chose my brother Jonathan as the donor. He was given a drug that would force his bone marrow to over produce these blood generating cells which were after extracted to inject into Jay's veins. When these cells were given to Jay, his body was forced to start producing what essentially is Jonathan's bone marrow instead of his own. Weird right? Now they both share the same bone marrow.
All of this seems quite simple but in reality the chemo sessions prior to a bone marrow transplant are so heavy that they basically take you inches away from death in order to "drain" your bone marrow. Jay was placed in a tiny hospital room for over 30 days where he was never aloud to leave and no one could enter without latex gloves, a mask, a medical gown and hat that covers all your clothes and hair. His condition went from decent to horrible as the chemotherapy was doing its job killing everything in his blood stream. His immune system went completely dead and he started having infections in his mouth and throat just from breathing. He became unable to eat and eventually unable to speak because his mouth and throat were covered in huge ulcers that made him look like he swallowed a football. He lost every bit of hair on his body and lost so much weight that he was practically unrecognizable. He had to be given blood transfusions constantly until his own system could start producing normal cells again. It was hard to believe he would ever recover but he still never showed a sign of weakness.
After about 30 days of being locked up in this cell, Jay's blood cell count started climbing on it's own which meant that he was responding to the transplant. All of his infections slowly susbsided and he was eventually sent home a little before christmas of 2006 a fragile, broken man. He explained to me how difficult it was to be in there for so long, not being aloud to see anyone without mask and fully covered in gloves and gown. Not being aloud to be touched or hugged, loosing the ability to speak and to eat but still having to get up and vomit constantly. Lets just say he was glad to be out of there.
Now he had a new challenge to face. His body was so weakened from being locked in a room for so long, sick everyday and unable to move that even getting out of bed was now exhausting. Walking around the house was enough to make him short of breath. The doctors said he had to wait until june to have more tests done and to see if the transplant had been successful. In the meantime he had to be monitored for symptoms of bone marrow rejection which can later happen and cause many problems and over the next months, Jay slowly started walking and eating normally and getting back on his feet, but he had long and steep hill to climb.
In june of 2007, he got the amazing news that the transplant had been successful and that he was officially cancer free. He has been ever since and now lives a normal life again, working, enjoying sports and loving every minute of it. His hair, eyebrows, eyelashes and all body hair eventually grew back even thicker than before and thanks to Jonathan's bone marrow, he is no longer allergic to cats and does not have any seasonal allergies either.
We keep our fingers crossed and hopefully Jay will never have cancer again.
Pierre. "
