News4U Online

All Good Days: Brain Tumor Survivor Turns Tragedy into Possibility Through Music

_________________________________________________________________

He’s been evacuated from Beruit twice, intimidated by the KGB, involved in top secret government operations and traveled extensively through Europe and Japan as well as 44 of the 50 states. James Bond? No, it’s David M. Bailey, a singer songwriter whose life so far sounds like a movie. But in this movie, the villain isn’t a mad scientist wielding a death ray, but a brain tumor that Bailey has been battling since 1996. And Bailey’s hope comes from a place you can’t get to in a BMW.

            Bailey was born in Pittsburgh but spent his formative years in Beruit, Lebanon, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Bailey learned guitar from his 7th grade English teacher. In 1982 Israel invaded Beruit and Bailey’s family was forced to evacuate. Bailey transferred to a private school in Germany that exclusively taught the children of missionaries.

            Europe gave Bailey the opportunity to pursue weekend jobs outside the American norm. Instead of flipping burgers he became a hitchhiking street musician. Bailey remembers, “In Europe every city of every size has a pedestrian street. I’d open a case and start playing...stay until I had enough for dinner and move on.”

            During this time Bailey formed a quartet called Certain Sounds featuring guitar, piano, flute, and drums. Certain Sounds performed in France, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, and Hungary, as well as Romania where they were stopped by the border police. Bailey recalls, “The KGB wanted to take our instruments away.”

            Bailey graduated from college with a degree in communication arts and literature “which enabled me to do everything and qualified me for nothing.” Bailey literally stumbled into a government job he describes as “top secret” although it was a “desk job not a super spy.” Bailey spent the next few years working in various corporate positions that allowed him to travel.

            While preparing to relocate to Massachusetts Bailey began getting bad headaches that worried his wife. His doctor attributed to the stress of getting a new job and moving. and prescribed muscle relaxants that made the headaches worse than ever. Finally the pain prompted Bailey’s wife to call an ambulance which Bailey remembers thinking was “a little dramatic.” It was the last thing he remembered as his body was wracked by a grand mal seizure caused by a Glioblastoma multiforme or GMB brain tumor, the “grand nasty big daddy of all tumors,” Bailey grimly jokes.

            Bailey pursued aggressive treatment at Duke University including chemo, radiation and surgery. During this intense time Bailey rediscovered love for the instrument that had once paid for his dinners in Europe, an instrument he had not picked up in 10 years. Bailey started small, writing songs for the youth group at his church but his career quickly grew. Bailey knew he had to decide between performing full time and returning to the corporate world. “For a lot of reasons it seemed like the right thing to do to...to see what God can do with a brain tumor and a guitar. Basically he said ‘Get out of my way and let me show you!”

            Eleven and a half years and 16 albums later Bailey rarely looks back though “There is a part of me that looks at the month’s schedule and sees nothing there...I get restless. Almost always within a week I’ve got more than I can do.” And there is no denying the impact this troubadour has on his audience. His guest book is full of messages from people who have been touched, even those suffering from “cancer of the soul.” Bailey relates, “Once an older gentleman came up to me and said ‘I don’t have a tumor but I have lost hope in a lot of different ways. You just gave it all back.”