Legends come and legends go. While they walk amongst us, when we have an opportunity to show our gratitude we should strongly consider doing so. Reedsman Ken Peplowski is suffering from an incurable cancer yet has the optimism to aver: “one can stay in remission for a very long time.” Frank Vignola has spearheaded an opportunity to help a modern-day legend of our music: no donation will be considered too small (OR too large, of course!). If everyone who has heard Ken in person or on recording considers giving a penny for every note he’s played that has reached their soul, he’ll be set for several lives. In Ken’s eloquent words:
(Photo: John Herr)
“Just want to let everyone know how incredibly grateful I am for your support, generosity, positivity, and friendship. I’ve been getting treatments for Multiple Myeloma for a year now, so in addition to missing a year and a half of work because of the pandemic, I missed much more because of treatment. I’m completely drained of energy from the chemo, I’m giving myself daily injections of a drug that’s supposed to help with white blood cell production, and I go in every day for blood work—unfortunately the numbers aren’t there yet so it looks like this will drag on for another week or so. If it fails this time, I have a meeting with the doctor next week to determine strategy. If it takes, I’m going to have to pick a time to get the healthy stem cells re-transferred into my body as a cancer firewall. Then it’s another three months of quarantine, so three more months of no work.
“As you can imagine, my medical bills are just staggering, and I’ve pretty much wiped out my nest egg. I plan on working as much and as hard as I can around all this; even though we’ve all had tough times, the fact that there’s been such an incredible outpouring of generosity and encouragement from all of you makes me not just keep going but excel and come back stronger than ever! I’ll see you on the bandstand and I can’t thank you enough. With much love and appreciation, Ken.”
To contribute to help defray Ken Peplowski’s medical expenses and living costs incurred during his course of treatment, please visit his GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/6sw88q-ken-peplowski.
