To be honest, I didn’t put much thought into the whole thing other than the fact that it is a great opportunity to put myself out there while at the same time, giving back.

But as the telethon gets closer, the weight of the event is really starting to sink in. I keep thinking about how cancer not only effected my life but the lives of my family and friends as well.

Both my grandma and grandpa Koehler both passed as a result of the disease. I was much younger with my grandpa but I remember the trips to the old VA hospital. I remember watching him – a strong proud man – whither away over the course of a year while at the same time watching my grandma slowly lose the love of her life, and my dad, aunts and uncles deal with the loss of their father.

Years later my grandma had a very aggresive style of cancer – pancreatic I think. She selflessly refused the chemo because she didn’t want to put the family through the same year long meatgrinder that everyone endured with my grandpa.

My wife has had four very close relatives who have been effected deeply by cancer. I am glad to say three of the four have either beaten it or are in the process of beating it.

One of my longest and closest friends just lost his father – another strong and proud man – to it last summer. I have co-workers that have been battled the disease. And unfortunately, if I really thought about it, I could go on.

Bottom line, this disease has effected a lot of lives and taken some damn good people. It will continue to do so until somebody much smarter than I can figure something out. All I can do, other than make a donation myself, is show up, play a tune and hope that someone like yourself watches long enough to consider picking up the phone and making a donation too.

So if you are around the TV or internet at all this weekend, flip on channel 10 or KTTC.com and check out some of the acts and seriously consider making a donation.

Chances are you will be helping out a close friend or relative.

Join Doc and I at around 1:16 pm on Sunday afternoon to here us performing a song called “Minnesota Got Colder” (you can hear the demo below).

The song is a result of all of the seemingly endless amount of funerals I was attending over the course of last year. I walked through a lot of lines and all I could say to these friends and relatives was “sorry for your loss.” I felt I need to offer something more, something that could possibly provide some piece of mind. So I wrote the song. I hope that it is good enough to provide comfort to anyone else dealing with loss.

Press play to listen now.

Download audio file (corey-koehler_minnesota-got-colder-demo.mp3)

For more information about the telethon please visit KTTC.com.