“A young Chicago patient named Dean Comstock will soon celebrate his 30th birthday, and we are hoping to bring a little bit of the music he loves to his bedside. Dean received a double lung transplant over a year ago after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Unfortunately, Dean has experienced serious complications and has
been hospitalized for several months. He is currently in the ICU and requires a ventilator to help him
breathe.“
This is what was written in the attachment that came to my attention in a group email from Jenna M~ .
Jenna M~ handles bookings for the Old Town School of Folk Music. She’s responsible for bringing artists and people who need them for weddings, birthdays, parties etc. together.
Quite often these are paying gigs. Some even pay very well. But it is uncommon for people to ask musicians/artists to volunteer their time. Things like food, drink, exposure and the opportunity to do good for the community get waved at us a lot. Event planners from every walk of life will actually plan “Free Musician” into their budgets and then pat themselves on the back for being penny-wise and, dare I say, pound foolish.
In the end, people like Jenna, working for an organizations like the Old Town School of Folk Music start to feel a little uncomfortable asking professional, skilled and more often than not, degreed professionals to “volunteer” their hard earned skills while everyone around them charges them for space, time and consultations until they, the musicians providing the service for their communities etc, are broke.
That is one truth that artists carry in their shoes like pebbles.
It is also true that artists all around the world know the import of what we bring to people, families and communities of every kind. We know that in even in the simplest of scenarios, you can’t put a price tag on a brides wedding day, grandpa’s 80th birthday or the value of teaching someone to play Amazing Grace for their Great Grandparent at their deathbed.
Sometimes we even get the rare opportunity to share our gifts to one of our own.
Carlos Santana once said to me, during a chance encounter at CME (Chicago Music Exchange) “You are the blessing”. He held my right hand in both of his and wouldn’t let go till I made solid eye contact. “You are the blessing”, he said and smiled wryly. I wanted to understand it, to take it in, but all I could think was that he was talking to the wrong guy.
On August 11th of this year, I began a journey that would show me what Carlos had in his heart for me.
When I followed up on the communication, it turned out that a social worker, Michael B., from North Western Hospital was reaching out to the OTSFM in search of a musician to come and play the blues for, and perhaps with a young lung transplant patient.
The request was a bit unusual because he plays guitar and sings himself and wanted someone to– come and play with him. As you can imagine, given my recent history, my own transplant in January of 2025 his request resonated with me deeply. I very quickly switched into “don’t worry about the money mode”. The opportunity to pay it forward and be part of someone else’s miracle threw it’s arms around me like a bear hug on my heart about 30 seconds into the email.
(Pictures left to right: Dean 2026, My Nurses at UChicago Med 2025, my Robot Heart “Robbie”, Me biking later 2025, Bill and Janette “No More Kings” 2025)
You can support McKayla and Dean via this link to their GoFundMe
Dean and McKayla Comstock live in Syracuse, NY. The story of their realization that Dean had lung cancer and how it changed their lives is very well documented on the NorthWestern Medical Newsroom website.
Highschool sweethearts, dating since they were 14 and 15; playing music together in various capacities their whole lives. It started with Dean handing her some sheet music and asking her if she knew how to play it, to which she replied “No”. Dean remained undaunted until finally they found themselves not only playing together but being quite the envious couple.
I shared my thoughts on being asked to “work for free” when we met and Dean and McKayla smiled broadly and knowingly. There is a group chuckle, as they relate the tale of a time they were asked if they knew any songs that they would like brought up on the Karaoke machine for them to sing along with. They politely mentioned to their host that they did, in fact, know some songs and were able to actually play music themselves.
As I took off my hat and unpacked my guitar I had a flashback.
On December 29th, 2024, I was admitted to the ER at Evanston Northshore Hospital. On New Years Day, between 2 and 3am, I arrived via ambulance at the University of Chicago Medicine ER and was being fitted for a catheter. Later that month, on January 26th, I was given a new heart.
Meanwhile, somewhere near Syracuse, NY, in the Jordan-Elbridge school district, near Lake Owasco; where families liked to sit outside by campfires gazing at the water, telling stories of adventures, harrowing and other wise, Dean Stockwell’s 3 year ordeal battling lung cancer was culminating in the completion of plans to move his wife and himself across the country to North Western Hospital and rent an apartment in Chicago that would serve as a residence and base of operations for visiting loved ones.
Family and friends in the Jordan-Elbridge school district began sending supplies and huddling in prayer for Dean and McKayla; like my family and friends here and abroad were praying for me. Dean and I, both blessed with loving wives and communities shared a place in the arms of the angels.
On May 16th 2025; after 4 hours of surgery, Dean Stockwell was successfully given 2 new lungs. He beat a terminal, illness lung cancer, through transplant surgery. Then, after 2 weeks of recovery, he continued his jouney, battling infections, the side effects of necessary immuno-suppressing drugs, kidney failure, and finally lymphoma, which required 2 rounds of chemo.
(Bill B., Dean C., McKayla C., Guitalele)
I asked what keeps him going. He of course lists his wife friends and family. Dreaming of playing guitar more, or being able to enjoy life for a while; a sense of obligation to his donor; and faith; a sense that God is asking him to go on.
Citing Moses as one of his original heroes, he recalls the story of his journey leading his people through the red sea. He also mentions the trials and tribulations of Jobe and, as if there wasn’t already enough pressure, Dean’s actual father road a camel up Mt Sinai.
I have been haunted by a figure that appeared on the windowsill of my 4th floor ICU room. Impossibly seated both in and outside the window. I remember being surprised by his presence and suddenly calmed by my own certainty that he had been there the whole time with me. I remembered him being there clear as day everyday even though I had never seen him before.
When he disappeared, I remember having the same thoughts go through my head. I dreamed of being able to play guitar and sing more, my father-in-laws concern that I enjoy life more; an incredible sense of obligation to my donor; a sense that God is asking me to go on. I don’t like congregational religion. I don’t attend church of any kind. And yet my faith on these points is unshakable.
They, McKayla and Dean, have been in Chicago since March of 2025. Dean just turned 30 this past month, McKayla is 29. Their adventure with Dean’s lung cancer began when they were 27 years old. That’s three years and change of struggling to breathe and praying for a solution.
Understanding the importance of location is perhaps the most haunting characteristic of pursuing and becoming eligible for transplant surgery. The idea that the technological and medical needs for any transplant are quite often accompanied by the necessity to move the patient and families from one geography to another in order to have access to better medical care and facilities.
The best place for a hopeful major organ transplant recipient to be is one where a lot of people die suddenly. Places where there is gun violence. Places where people engage in risky behavior like refusing to wear motorcycle helmets are ideal. The location should also have the best medical care available. Like Chicago.
While I was in the ICU at UChicago Med, there were at least two families there that had traveled from the Philippines and India respectively for transplant surgeries. Their families came with them and they stayed in Chicago hotels.
Healthcare is state of the art in many places around the globe but most people don’t have easy access to them. Support from friends and family and strong communities are deeply needed.
Insurance companies are just ridiculous. Dean was denied for his lung transplant initially and then again a second time. It wasn’t until the 3rd time he was able to get approved. Unlike me, Dean had to listen to McKayla arguing his position and needs to an America Insurance company– while trying to breathe.
I can remember that. I had CHF. The doctors were arguing about the diuretic’s effect on my kidneys while I gasped for breath. I don’t think I have ever been so scared and angry at the same time. I saw Janette watching with tear filled eyes until yelling until she finally had to run out into the hallway and shame the nursing into making the uncomfortable call to the on call physician who hopefully would answer the page regarding my inability to breathe. I was just gasping hoping that this person was not out clubbing or drunk. If she hadn’t been there and lost it– who knows.
McKayla had to navigate a terrible bureaucracy that included the insurance companies claim that the procedure was not medically necessary. So, Dean is most likely breathing very shallowly. I remember that too. It means you have air but not enough to make words. And you can hear the nonsense going on around you. In the hallways there’s this merciless dinging of the nurses pagers as they literally run back and forth for everything from peanut butter sandwiches to people coding out– that means dying. Folks like Janette and McKayla are looking desperately for someone to listen to reason.
McKayla had to literally corral US Senators in order to pressure the insurance company into approving the procedure that would ultimately save Dean’s life. She got the advice from a friend who basically said, “Light em up!” and “Put em on blast!”. You would think that it’s the public shaming or sense of humanity that finally makes them respond. It’s not.
I note that in my own case, as in theirs, logic and pleas for reasonable action were first. Ultimately, right and successful action was secured only with the threat of Legal Action on my part or the threat thereof.
Lawyers. Lawyers or fear of litigation changes everything. And once you’ve hired a lawyer? Institutions are more cautious. The human compassion you were looking for from the get go? It suddenly manifests. As do the requests that people act more reasonably and respectfully.
No Lawyers? No Senators? No Bill. No Dean. Thank you McKayla and Janette. We owe you our lives.
I taught Dean the “White, Brown & Black” blues song. I wasn’t sure he’d be up for it but he ate it up. I got him to play lead for me when McKayla surprised him, remember it was his birthday, with a Guitalele. A Ukulele sized guitar. It sounded great! Then we played “Sweet Home Chicago” together with McKayla singing as well. They told me all about their home town, how much they enjoyed Chicago and hope to again when Dean is released later this month.
I am he
As you are he
As you are me
And we are all … the blessing
