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Comprehensive Cancer Institute Patient
celebrates his triumph Over Bone Cancer with
unique album
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.”
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