Thomas was a Jack of all trades -- becoming a successful musician, hairstylist, bodybuilder, photographer, and filmmaker, to name just a few of his accomplishments.
Thomas learned in 2014 that he had a rare form of kidney disease, chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, a disease that few oncologists knew how to beat. The five-year survival rate was virtually none. But just like he would do with everything in his life, Tom became an expert and fierce self-advocate and dove into the fight for his life.
First, as a Boy Scout, Thomas set his sights on getting every badge. Then he discovered he could draw animals with uncanny accuracy. In his teens, he got a guitar. For much of his teen years, he would shelter in his room playing guitar for hours on end and was rarely seen without his left hand whirring up and down a fretboard. In the early 1980s, he formed a heavy metal band – Sabbatar – fronted by his girlfriend, Sherry Hunt. They entered battle of the bands competitions around the Seattle area and began building a fan base. The band remarkably still exists, playing clubs in Colorado Springs. Then, Tom, as he did throughout his life, suddenly walked away and was onto something else.
This is what he did. He would spend enormous amounts of time mastering an activity, becoming an expert at whatever it was. Then, seemingly bored at becoming the best with the learning curve behind him, he would walk away.
He did it with hairdressing. After seeing the film, “Shampoo,” starring Warren Beatty about a hairdresser who is successful with the ladies, Tom took beauty school classes. He rented a chair in a Bellevue, Wash., salon and began living a flashy lifestyle, cutting hair in the day and disco dancing at night.
He then learned how to be a drafter, taking courses and quickly mastered the skill, getting hired on as a contractor for Boeing, working on jet airplane design. Tom became an expert drafter and was eventually hired by Boeing.
Around this time, Tom met Lisa Hallett. And their relationship produced a child, Kristina – his mother’s first grandchild, a bubbling, dramatic cherub that thrilled everyone in the family.
With Kristina, Tom became an expert on babies and tapped into his amazing ability to nurture that first came from caring for and reaching animals both wild and domestic. But the relationship with Lisa didn’t last. Tom struck out on his own. Anyone who knew Tom was aware of his temper. He could charm one minute and rage the next. That and his fierce independent side pushed some people away. Late in life he found himself alone, without a partner and wondering how he ended up that way.
He filled his loneliness with creativity. In his 30s, he mastered bodybuilding, winning competitions throughout the Pacific Northwest. Then after tasting success. He quit. He dove into photography, learning how to shoot models and landscapes, and started his own photography business. And even with cancer raging in his body, he took up filmmaking, writing, directing and producing a short film – The Chosen One, which starred his daughter and was shown in several independent film festivals around the world.
Then came that fateful night in November, where alone in an emergency room, Tom learned the devastating news. Patients with Stage IV kidney cancer have a five-year survival rate of just 10%. His cancer was an extremely rare form with even lower survival rates.
Yet, Tom marshaled his ever curious and ceaselessly driven mind to beating the disease. He joined message boards, read medical journals, and consulted with fellow cancer patients and physicians. He became an expert. Dr. Daniel Lin from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance performed a masterful surgery, removing cancer in the kidney and around the organ that other surgeons wouldn't touch. Tom then worked closely with Dr. Scott Tykodi to find ways to keep the disease at bay. They tried any type of new therapy. On the first of every November, Tom would hold a Cancerversary party, gathering his friends to celebrate another year. He beat the five-year milestone, and at his last Cacerversary party he did not look like a cancer patient. But he knew the disease was slowly winning.
At one point, as other therapies had been exhausted, Tom signed onto an experimental drug trial at the University of Colorado Denver. For months, every third week, he would fly from Washington for treatments and scans in Denver. At his first appointment – meeting one of the nation’s top kidney cancer doctors -- Tom and the doctor spoke the same language. The doctor was clearly impressed by his level of understanding. Unfortunately, the therapy did not work. So Tom returned to his doctor in Washington. But the cancer would not cease. It spread to his spine, ballooned in his liver and began crippling his every move. As a last stand, he tried radiation and chemotherapy – which doesn’t work for kidney cancer but could stop the liver infestation.
Weakened at the end, Tom could not walk, could barely talk and eventually couldn’t eat. Yet he was insistent against going to the hospital again. He adamantly refused to go to a rehab facility, as was recommended by his doctors. He wanted to be at home. He wanted his final act to be on his terms. His younger brother -- by just over a year -- Jeffrey, selflessly agreed to help him. For the final days of Tom’s life, Jeff cared for him, carried him and fed him.
On Wednesday afternoon, the man who said he would never stop fighting knew the cancer had won. He was tired, in pain and weak. As Jeff carried him to his room, he said words no one had heard from him before. He told Jeff he wanted to die. Jeff tucked him in, pulling the sheets under his chin. Hugged him. And moments later Thomas Meyer -- this 6-foot-4 man who lived life to the fullest died – eight weeks after his mother’s death and six days after his 63rd birthday.
Just like everything, Tom mastered his cancer. He knew its every twist and turn and became an expert. And just like his every endeavor, after he had had enough, Tom walked away on his own terms.
Thomas Richard Meyer is survived by his daughter, Kristina Hallett, of Everett, Wash.; his brothers, Jeremy Meyer of Broomfield, Colo., and Jeffrey Meyer of Seattle, Wash.; and his nieces Abigail Meyer, Julia Meyer and Kathryn Meyer of Broomfield. His father David Paul Meyer died in December 2021 in Seattle, and his mother Christie Forrestal died in November 2020 in Westminster, Colo.
Partager l'avis de décès
v.1.9.5