Never Give Up Without A Fight

Lee Heiman

Description

For six months, Lee Heiman lay in a hospital bed at the mercy of doctors, nurses-and the disease that nearly killed him. During that time, he relied on the strength of family, friends, and his own memories to help pull him through. Now, let Lee take you on that journey of survival and self-discovery. Go behind the scenes of the music artists he worked with and the music festivals he produced, and see firsthand some of the business battles that helped Lee realize you should never give up without a fight.

Informations

• Publié par: Book Venture Publishing LLC
• Date de parution: 06 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781643485614
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NEVER GIVE UP WITHOUT A FIGHT

One Man’s Battle to Survive Leukemia and the Music Business

LEE HEIMAN
Copyright © 2018 by Lee Heiman.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
BookVenture Publishing LLC 1000 Country Lane Ste 300 Ishpeming MI 49849 www.bookventure.com Hotline: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Ordering Information: Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number 2018961457 ISBN-13: Softcover 978-1-64348-559-1 Pdf 978-1-64348-560-7 ePub 978-1-64348-561-4 Kindle 978-1-64348-562-1
Rev. date: 10/16/2018
EDITED BY: Michelle Estes
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
Try to stop me
I will carry on Try to oppose me I will prevail
My life has been shot down I’m not ready to fall Whenever you condemn me You only make me strong
I’ll never give it up without a fight
From the song “Without a Fight.”
Lyrics by Mike Peters and the Alarm. Reprinted with permission of the artist.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Lisa, for being with me throughout my journey. Lisa, you have been my rock and inspiration, and I could not have made it without you. I also thank my children, Bret, Eliza, Jared, Lily, and Wes, for their unconditional love and support, my motivation to survive. To Cindy, Kim, and my in-laws, Fran and Marvin, thank you for everything you have done and continue to do. Many thanks also go to all my friends who have gone off the rails with me on the crazy train called life.
Special thanks to my sister-in-law Janet, Simona and Eric, Lisa and James, Claudia and Kevin, Stacy and Lance, and Alex and the team at Track for watching over my family.
Finally, I would like to thank all the doctors and nurses, especially my brother-in-law David, whose knowledge and efforts have allowed me to keep on rockin’ and rollin’.
Disclaimer: Some of the names of the people mentioned in this book have been changed to protect the innocent and the not-so innocent as well.
CHAPTER 1
“What’s your name?”
Uhhhmm . . . you’re an angel. You should know. “Lee Heiman,” I answered dutifully. Seriously, though, this is how I get greeted at the gates of heaven? With a question-and-answer session? Shouldn’t the Big Guy behind the gates know who I am?
“What year is this, Mr. Heiman?”
“It’s 2013.” Why the hell would the year matter up here? I’m dead. If this is how heaven is going to be, I don’t want to check in.
“Do you know why you’re here?” “Leukemia. I had leukemia. Am I dead?”
“No, Mr. Heiman. You’re at Lenox Hill Hospital. You’re lucky you got here before it was too late. Your blood pressure is very low. You’re not dead, Mr. Heiman, but you came close.”
Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Lucky. If I’m so lucky, how the hell did I wind up here?
The Big Easy Does It
February 2012. I started to feel extremely tired, and even had difficulty walking, while my company, Track Marketing, was producing a post- Super Bowl after-party for Beyoncé in New Orleans. Pepsi was my client at that time, and my team was hired to fly radio winners (a Pepsi promotion) and bring them to the halftime show at the Super Bowl, which featured Beyoncé that year. In addition, we were hired to produce the after-party for Pepsi VIPs.
We rented a country club for the party and did all the decor, event production, management, technical production, coordination— you name it, we did it. We had three bands playing that night: the Roots, Trombone Shorty, and Hunter Hayes. We were expecting Beyoncé to show; she never did, to the disappointment of more than five hundred VIPs, the little . . . never mind. Normally, when I produce a show, I am in charge and proactive in dealing with all aspects of the production. Not only was I not myself, I also felt tired, nervous, lethargic, and most definitely, not in control. My business partners, production manager, and team ended up doing all the work. I remember being ready to deploy the security after our meeting, but I could barely communicate. My production manager, Mitch, had to take over. That was when I knew something wasn’t right.
Over the next few months, I muddled through each day and felt sicker and sicker. As an ex-semipro baseball player, I had always kept myself in shape by working out and taking care of myself in general. I was a typical ex-jock with a tough-it-out-through-the-pain mentality. Yet I could not shake the malaise that swept over me on a now-constant basis.
I was then hired to book talent for the Revel Casino’s opening in May in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was a magnificent structure, similar to the Vegas casinos, but unlike anything seen on the East Coast. Atlantic City gaming was dying, and the then-governor of New Jersey gave the casino $200 million to open and finish construction. Total cost: $2.4 billion! To celebrate the grand opening, the owners of Revel wanted to book the biggest names in music. Money was no object; they were looking to brand Revel as a destination for millennials and to take over Atlantic City. So I booked the seat packers: the Black Keys, Maroon 5, Kid Rock, Sugarland, Nickelback, Journey, Barry Manilow, just to name a few. I recall going to the shows then staggering from the concert through the casino and into my hotel room.
All through the summer of 2012, I would go to work at my office and be in a daze as I talked on the phone. Meeting after meeting, I just felt something was not right. By mid-August, I was having trouble breathing and walking. Pneumonia. I entered Lenox Hill Hospital and was there for five horrific days, with fevers on and off. After leaving the hospital, I stayed home for another week. I felt like hell but thought it was from the pneumonia. Finally, I went back to work. I struggled every day. After a workout session, I would be exhausted, not exhilarated. I thought I was on the verge of a heart attack, so in October, I made an appointment with my cardiologist of three years, Dr. Camp. He greeted me warmly and gave me a thorough exam. Two days later, he called and asked me to come back to his office. I saw him the following day, and he told me everything was fine with my heart but my blood counts were below normal. He told me not to worry, that he would take my blood and run the tests again. Of course I didn’t worry, being the positive person that I am by nature, but when I saw him again, the counts had gone down even more. Time to see my general practitioner and check it out further.
That afternoon, not only did I call my doctor, but I also trolled the Internet for the phrase “low blood counts.” While I did get a bit concerned, I still felt everything would turn out fine.
Dr. Sheri Sand is an interesting woman, to say the least. She had been my general practitioner for over five years when I made the appointment to see her for this, whatever this was. The day I first met her, I was waiting in the room, and in walked a striking blonde with a great body (not to sound sexist). She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. I thought she was an assistant, but boy, was I wrong!
Never before in my lifetime had I ever been as self-conscious of how I looked and acted as I had during that visit. She quickly did an exam and then said it was time for the rectal part. Oh, boy. She assured me that she had small fingers and it would not hurt. I won’t go into further details, but that was how I met Dr. Sand, a great doctor and diagnostic genius.
On this particular day, however, there was no time for pleasantries. She took my blood and sent me on my way. A day later, she called me to her office. Yes, my counts were low. “But don’t be concerned.” (Too late, Doc.) She then recommended I see a hematologist, Dr. Valencia.
Blood, Sweat, and Fears
The beginning of November, I had an appointment with Dr. Valencia. The people in his office looked one step out of the grave, all suffering from some type of cancer. For the first time, I felt truly nervous. After I had waited close to an hour, they called me into the room. Dr. Valencia introduced himself, all six feet four inches of himself, with a comforting smile and a great attitude. I had already taken the blood test in his office, and like everyone else so far, he told me the blood counts were low but that I shouldn’t worry. Fat chance. I was worried. He told me to return at the beginning of the following week to see if the blood counts had stabilized.
The next week, I found out my blood counts were the lowest they had been since my ordeal started. Dr. Valencia looked me square in the eyes as he told me that I had leukemia. I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing, pain coursing throughout my body. What does this mean? He said I had CLL, chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells found throughout the body that form the basis for our immune system. The cancer was attacking those cells not just in my bloodstream but also in my bone marrow (the soft tissue in the center of bones that helps form all blood cells).
People with early-stage CLL typically don’t receive treatment since studies have shown that early treatme