The Good Stuff: This song called life

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - Randy Lambert of Shreveport spent years playing in blues bands across the ArkLaTex.

“Some say the blues is depressing. But not for me,” explained Lambert while picking the strings on one of his many guitars.

“It’s gotten me through the best of times and the worst of times,” he added.

No doubt, the last 15 months have certainly been the worst of time for Lambert.

In December of 2019, he says doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 colon cancer.

“The original prognosis, they game me four years to live.”

Over the last year, Lambert has undergone extensive chemotherapy treatments. But a couple of months ago his doctors informed him the cancer had spread to his liver.

With that, doctors shared a much more grim outlook, telling him he was looking at closer to nine months to live unless the cancer started responding to the treatment.

“There are two options. I can go in my bedroom with the lights off and covers over my head and stay there, or I can live life to the fullest,” explained Lambert.

“One of those isn’t an option at all.”

A year ago, not long after his diagnosis, many of his close friends began putting together a concert fundraiser in his honor.

Sadly, despite the extensive planning, that event was never held since the worldwide pandemic was declared just days before its scheduled date.

A new concert fundraiser is now slated for April 11 at the Elks Lodge in Shreveport.

Not long after receiving the heartbreaking news from doctors, Lambert began documenting his cancer fight on Facebook.

He would also encourage his male friends and Facebook followers to have their colons checked.

“He hadn’t been feeling well and went to the doctor,” recalled one of Lambert’s old friends, Daryl Rayburn, who remembered reading that original post.

“It’s eye opening because it can be any of us,” he added.

And it nearly was.

Rayburn admits Lambert’s post was the push he needed to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.

“I’m glad I went and got it checked,” stated Rayburn who said doctors found a number of pre-cancerous polyps that had to be removed.

“They were larger than he would have liked to have seen,” Rayburn said about his doctor’s concerns and why his medical team was anxious to have them taken out.

Rayburn is now required to get follow up colonoscopies every two years.

Since that time, Rayburn and Lambert have stayed in close contact.

“It’s a win-win for me buddy,” commented Lambert on handling his fight against cancer.

“If I live to be 80 years old, then I’ve been blessed with a long life. God blessed me with more than I deserve,” detailed Lambert, recalling the time he met his longtime blues hero, B.B. King, to when he began sharing his message about the life-saving importance of colonoscopies.

“But if He gets me next week, I still win. I do,” continued Lambert.

“Because I get to go to that place God promised me in Heaven. And I get to hang out with B.B. King without security guards saying, ‘Hey, step back’,” laughed Lambert.

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