Screenshot from Instagram
Audio By Carbonatix
Social media can be a cesspool of cynicism, intolerance and name-calling, but every once in a while it warms our heart.
Dr. Michelle Nichols, a Dallas psychiatrist who has been fighting breast cancer for the last decade, has reached the stage 4, metastatic, level of the illness, but she’s making the most of her time with her husband, Greg, and their children. Both love music, so she compiled a list of 12 musicians she’d love to hear with her family. The names include Ben Folds, Colin Hay and Lauren Daigle.
Nichols’ husband reached out to Dr. J. Mack Slaughter, a Fort Worth emergency room doctor with a big following on Instagram, to see if he could connect with them.
“If anybody has any connection to these people on the list, that would be greatly appreciated,” Slaughter said on his Instagram, trying to hold back tears while filming the video in his car. “They say nothing amazing will happen if you don’t ask, so I’m asking. They’re dreaming big, and they always have, so I’m putting this out in the universe. Let’s see what happens.”
The request paid off. Word reached several of the artists on the list including Folds, Hay, Daigle, the blues-rock trio Porterdavis and Heather Maloney, all of whom are working with the family to do livestreams or even live concerts in the the Nichols’ home.
Slaughter says Nichols was his attending physician in medical school in 2010, and he got to know her and her family well over the years. She started her first or second chemotherapy treatment when they were in school together, and Slaughter – the founder of a nonprofit called Music Meets Medicine, which provides music therapy programs and materials to children’s hospitals – offered to play music for Nichols and husband during the treatment process.
“She asked, ‘Did you know any Colin Hay?’ and I played a song, but it was the only Colin Hay song I knew from Men at Work,” Slaughter says. “[I sang] ‘If I lived until I was 102, I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you,’ and as I start singing the song, I realize, ‘Oh, dude, you picked the wrong song. This couple, they’re actually facing potentially her own mortality, and you’re singing a song about a husband who loses his wife [and] who’s never gonna get over her. But I was too deep into the song, and instead of it being this sad thing, it became a profound experience. They truly felt the words and the lyrics.”
Nichols and her family went through treatments and sometimes recoveries over the years, and through it all, Slaughter says she never let it interrupt her life.
“She never stopped working,” Slaughter says. “She never stopped spending so much time with her kids planning all these wonderful trips. She never stopped biking to work. She would bike to work in the Texas heat and the Texas rain.”
Six years ago, her cancer returned and eventually, Slaughter says, Nichols and her husband had to take a step back to take care of her health. The family reached out to Slaughter, who worked in the entertainment industry before becoming a doctor, to see if he could reach some of Nichols’ favorite musicians. They hoped they might be willing to record a performance or arrange a livestream for her and her family. He contacted someone who worked at a music talent agency in Los Angeles, who texted back, “I hope they have millions of dollars because that’s the only way it’s going to happen.”
Slaughter turned to Instagram with the full list of names his friend and mentor had requested with the promise that they would be willing to pay money for the artists’ time. The response, however, was more than anyone expected. Several followers posted comments tagging some of the names and a majority of them responded on the platform through various channels.
“Oh my heart,” Maloney posted in a comment. “I would be honored to play for this beautiful family. My team reached out this morning to see what we can do to make this happen.”
“I’m all in!” Daigle wrote from her official account. “When and where?”
Slaughter says he never expected such an overwhelming wave of support and responses from his post. The family has already had at least one virtual concert with Folds, and several of the other musicians are working to set up times to perform online or even in person for Nichols and her family.
“It it so crazy and so wonderful and part of me feels guilty because I’ve been able to feel this joy as well, but this isn’t directed towards me,” Slaughter says. “It’s directed towards the family, but it’s being funneled through me. I’ve been almost this conduit of love and support for this family who I love so much.”
