On March 25, 60-year-old Severn Savage was boiling water on his stove and cleaning the kitchen in his Laurel home when he realized he was on fire.
To this day, he's not exactly sure how it happened. He only knows that his shirt caught fire in his abdomen area, which three months later is still a mass of pink, lumpy dead skin.
Without panicking, he threw water on the shirt but the fire still wouldn't stop. Knowing he'd likely go into shock from the pain, Savage decided to lie down, call for his roommates upstairs and wait for an ambulance.
But before making his way over to the living room couch, he grabbed some essential items that were sitting on the kitchen table: an extra shirt, his wallet and a CD player.
If Savage seemed nonchalant as third-degree burns began to accumulate on his torso and left arm, it's because the fluke kitchen accident was only the most recent in a string of health problems over the previous 18 months.
Since October 2007, he had been diagnosed with lymphoma, beat the disease and then learned the chemotherapy had spiked his blood sugar level to 1,100 — a normal level for his age is 200, his doctor told him — giving Savage a severe case of diabetes.
An amateur musician known throughout the area's folk community, Savage had always turned to music to get through life's travails. He began his singing career eight years ago after a divorce. He performed just two weeks after leaving the burn unit at Johns Hopkins University. And he performed a folk song about baldness just days after losing his hair from chemotherapy.
So the CD player, Savage said, was an obvious choice.
"I can't stand daytime TV and I knew I'd be away for awhile," Savage said Thursday from the same couch that he passed out on that night in March.
His roommates responded to his screams that night and called an ambulance. Paramedics from Laurel Regional Hospital responded but his burns were so bad they took him to the nationally renowned Johns Hopkins Burn Center in Baltimore.
Savage spent a month there, followed by a week of physical therapy.
There is no timetable for when Savage can return to his job at the Rockville Post Office. Savage has seldom worked since October 2007, when doctors found a cancerous lump on his neck.
It's a reversal of his previous 35 years at the post office, where he had racked up about 2,800 hours of unused sick leave, which he used during his extended medical leave.
But even with years of goodwill and benefits, the onslaught of insurance copayments and the lack of a steady income have left Savage in dire financial straits. But rather than turn to music yet again, his friends in the music community are coming to him.
More than $1,000 has already been raised from places around the world to help Savage cover his bills. A valued contributor to the popular online folk music community, MudCat Café, donations and greeting cards from people he has never met in England, Australia and Iceland have come pouring into his Laurel townhome.
On Sunday, some of his best friends in the local music scene will perform at McGinty's Pub in Silver Spring to raise money for him.
"We got a lot of response from around the world," said Silver Spring resident and fellow MudCat user Chance Shiver, who will perform with his wife, Susette, on Sunday. "He's the kind of person who engenders affection and trust."
Savage credits those friends for allowing him to survive the medical hardships.
"My friends and family have been everything in seeing me through," Savage said. "I mean more to people than I thought I did."
Savage first performed eight years ago at the Royal Mile Pub in Wheaton to a crowd that included fellow folk enthusiast and eventual friend Paul DiBlasi.
"When he started out, Severn was not, to put it kindly, not one of the most wonderful singers," said DiBlasi, a Takoma Park resident who will perform Sunday. "But through the miracle of practicing, over the years he became a pretty darn good singer."
From that point on leading up to his lymphoma diagnosis, Savage performed once a week. He tried to stick to that schedule during chemotherapy but if he felt sick, he'd skip a performance and listen to the cabinets full of records and CDs that line almost the entire first floor of his home.
DiBlasi remembered a performance in Baltimore where Savage wore a cap throughout his show. He sang a traditional folk song but changed the lyrics to reference baldness. At one point in the song, he ripped off the hat to show his bald head, earning cheers from the familiar crowd.
Despite living with and eventually beating cancer, Savage's troubles continued. Because the chemotherapy ruined his appetite for weeks, his blood sugar skyrocketed to 1,100 and on March 17, 2008, he was diagnosed with diabetes and put back in the hospital.
He couldn't drink alcohol anymore, but again he found himself back on the pub circuit performing. He was able to start working again this year, before the kitchen accident renewed the process.
With his physical therapy now progressing, Savage was able to attend his daughter's college graduation last month in Ohio and began performing again in May.
There is still pain from the burns — the "worst pain God ever devised," he said — and he isn't sure when and if he will return to the post office. But for now, Savage says he is happy to be back on stage and with his friends — hopefully without another interruption.
"I've grinned down cancer, learned to live down diabetes," he said while looking at the patch of pink skin on his left arm. "And I'm going to stand up and grin back at this, too."
"Songs for Severn," a music fundraiser, will be held 3-5 p.m. Sunday upstairs at McGinty's Pub, 911 Ellsworth Drive in Silver Spring. A $10 donation at the door is requested. For more information, contact Kathie Mack at 301-270-5367 or twizzles@starpower.net.
