Chemotherapy Patient: Danny Moss 2

Jazz saxophonist Danny Moss was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2005. He talked about his illness and chemotherapy treatment in an interview with Virtual Medical Centre. On 28 May 2008, he passed away, aged 80.

Warning: This video contains depictions of deceased persons and may be offensive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

This is the second of two videos. To watch the first video in the series, see Chemotherapy Patient: Danny Moss 1.

 

Transcript

[Jazz music]

Well the general idea is that the nausea is appalling, the vomiting and the sickness that you get with it. It used to be like that, I don’t know, 15, 20 years ago maybe, but in this time they have developed these unbelievable drugs that cut that out completely.

I don’t sort of go half hearted, I’m, a powerful player. There’s no holding me back, you know, I’ve done concerts over the three days. There’s a guy called Bob Bernard and he’s a very famous Australia trumpet player and he runs the anabolic and annual jazz party for three days and he gets a few guys over from the United States and I’ve been over myself, some of us go over from here. We’ve had it about ten years in a row now. And this is a good time.

I’m playing the sax. I need all the help I can get. It’s wonderful to be here in this lovely jazz club and it’s lovely to see all you beautiful people out there, there’s a lot of friends and shortly I’ll be taking another trip back to Europe, I don’t know if my doctor is coming or not, but he’s keeping an eye on me I think. He says that one more treatment and I can go, so we’re doing some forty odd concerts back in, all across Europe [clapping]. What else would I do with myself otherwise? [laughter]

During this time I was [inauduble] during the Edinburgh Festival,

I think the world has to go on. He had a lot to do with it as well, that’s why I like to hope that someone watches what we’re doing now and sees that I can do it as well. You know, I want another ten years anyhow. You know, I’m not ready to go anywhere yet. There’s a lot more playing to do. I think for some people, think, “You don’t have to go on working like this anymore. It’s too much hard going.” I couldn’t do that. No I can’t do that. It’d be unthinkable. That’s what makes me tick. It’s really what I’m about. I’m as keen now about playing that thing as I was when I was 15 or 17. It’s sort of a way of life, take that away and I might as well give my dinner pail in now.

[Jazz music]

Okay, what we’re doing here is showing you how simple and painless the chemotherapy is. The old fashioned conception of it which I also had about a year ago was that it was very painful and very horrible to go through. But I’m having it right now and there is absolutely no fear of any discomfort at all, after about five hours of this, these lines put into me, they’ll unhook me and I’ll just get in my car and drive back home. And if it happens to me it could happen to you as well, because twelve months ago I was given two months to live and now I’m all ready to get up and go back to Europe for four months of hard blowing my saxophone on a concert tour, which I did last year. I did three months last year, after about three months of chemo. And this was having been given two months to live a year ago.

If any of you are desperate, try to talk to Dr Andrew Dean here at St John of God hospital. He’s a genius doctor who saved my life. He refuses to take credit for it, but he is a wonderful doctor, and all you need to do is get hold of a doctor like that, like Dr Dean, and get some good chemo treatment and then have the will to hang about a bit longer, because I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to last for another ten years anyhow. So, good luck to you all.

[Jazz music]

Yeah so they say it must knock you about a lot, you know, that’s a general conception, about what the chemotherapy does,  and in my case I have to say that it doesn’t do anything of the kind. You know, I was quite perky with it all. Sometimes I get a bit sleepy, you know, for an hour or two, but, well I probably am anyhow. Yeah, that’s right. I’ll be coming up forty actually.

[Jazz music]

More information

For more information about this treatment, read Chemotherapy.