There's this guy. His name is Matthew Zachary. He's a cancer survivor, a motivational speaker, a concert pianist, and the founder of a resource portal for young adults surviving cancer.

Steps for Living, Inc. -- also known as I'm too young for this -- was created by Zachary because he wants us all to know there are awesome cancer support services out there for adolescents and young adults. He means really awesome opportunities -- like spa retreats, online forums and blogs, social networking, camping excursions, fertility education, peer counseling, financial scholarships, and more.

You may be too young for cancer, but you are not alone, says Zachary whose mantra is Get Busy Living. And this is exactly what he is doing, despite challenges and setbacks in his own cancer recovery.

Think about this, an e-mail written by Zachary for those near and dear to his heart:

I am writing to share that I have suddenly gone deaf in my left ear. The condition is called Sudden Sensory Neural Hearing Loss.

After consulting with the country's best hearing experts as well as my oncologist, it has been determined that this is unequivocally a latent, long-term side effect of my post-operative cancer treatments from eleven years ago. Evidently, the excessive radiation dosages to the left hemisphere of my brain have caused irreparable neurological damage to my cochlea, which has ceased functioning.

There may be options (cochlear implants) but I will not know more for several weeks. As you can imagine, this is a devastating blow to my personal life and music career, especially since I remember fighting so hard to regain dexterity and muscle control in my left hand when it ceased functioning prior to my initial diagnosis in 1995.

That said, it has only reinvigorated me to stay the course and continue to advocate on behalf of the more than 500,000 young adults living with, through and beyond cancer each and every year. Now more than ever, I stress the importance of recognizing that remission is not a cure and that public awareness and adequate funding for adolescent and young adult cancer survivorship programming is tantamount to that of cancer research.

This is what it means to be a cancer survivor.

To read more about Zachary's powerful journey, click here for an unbelievably moving essay -- titled The Cost Of Living: No Cure For Cancer -- written by this unbelievably grounded guy.

The American Cancer Society has happily announced that cancer deaths have declined for the second straight year. This is big news -- mostly because our population is growing and aging and it's entirely possible this could have led to an increase in cancer deaths. Not only is this not true, but the drop in deaths for this second year is eight times greater than the drop during the first year. Amazing.

It's hard to imagine in light of this great news that there are still less hopeful statistics out there on the cancer front. But there are so many dimensions to this disease -- prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, survival -- that the numbers can vary tremendously depending on perspective.

From the perspective of diagnosis, one in two men and one in three women in America today will develop cancer during their lifetimes. These staggering statistics, based on data collected during 2001 through 2003, are detailed in a pivotal paper appearing in The Oncologist -- a monthly peer-reviewed journal for doctors devoted to cancer patient care.

Dr. Matthew Hayat and colleagues, who worked on this paper for the National Cancer Institute, reveal other worrisome numbers and facts.

It seems the number of new cancer patients is expected to more than double from the current 1.36 million in 2000 to almost 3 million in 2050. Five-year survival for all cancer stages combined ranges from as low as 16 percent for lung cancer patients to 100 percent for prostate cancer patients. And black Americans are reported to have the highest cancer incidence and mortality rates for men and women for all cancers combined.

So while less people are dying from cancer, diagnosis of the disease seems to be on the rise. Not exactly a perfect scenario -- but if science and research can keep up, perhaps those diagnosed with cancer will need to prepare not for death, but for the management of a chronic condition.

Winners lose, - heroes cry
Wise men listen, - let sleeping dogs lie
The same is easy, - it's hard to change
Although the parts are there, - just rearranged

When things get old and lose there salt
And it's time to go,
ain't no one's fault
It's hard to let go,
harder to remain. -- Romancing the moon lyrics

Michael Troy, guitarist, singer and songwriter, is a two-time Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer survivor whose music reflects the lives of New England's hard-working common folk. In 1998, he was diagnosed with cancer, and then again with a recurrence seven years later. After chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant by stem cell replacement, he is again cancer-free.

According to those who have met him, or have listened him perform live, Troy is a magical storyteller with a gift for melody, a deep rich voice, excellent finger-pickin' skills and the ability to compose outstanding stanzas of substance. I discovered Troy while visiting Art of Survivorship, a place to discover phenomenally talented artists and musicians -- who also happen to be cancer survivors. My father, who was a musician and world traveler, once told me that music is a universal language that allowed him to be anywhere in the world and find a common connection with the people there through music. Music does seem to speak to a deeper part of who we are, and allows us to join others who are on healing paths.

Steps For Living and Art of Survivorship Matthew Zachary and Adam Dachman will be guests on Dr. Bernie Siegel's radio program, Mind Health Medicine, hosted by Positive Radio Network, on May 2 at 9am PST. Zachary, a long-term brain cancer survivor, and founder of Steps For Living and Art of Survivorship, and Dr. Adam Dachman, surgeon, accomplished pianist, composer and singer/songwriter both work to raise awareness for the special issues facing cancer survivors and bring resources to the cancer survivorship community with art and music. Art of Survivorship supports and features artists and musicians who are cancer survivors. If you are unable to listen to the show when it airs, you will be able to  find it listed in the Mind Health Medicine radio program archives.