Introduction

The "Hotel Melanoma" moniker is a metaphor for living with my particular brand of cancer. Except for those lucky few of us deemed "cured", all we cancer survivors are guests of one of the many, many branded hotels in the "Hotel Carcinoma" chain. We can check out any time we like, but we can never leave. Meanwhile, let's be livin' it up; and please support cancer education, prevention, and treatment research.



Tutu Brothers

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Teenage Wasteland

A whole lot of folks at the Hotel Melanoma are waging a grassroots awareness campaign to warn teens and twenty-somethings about the risks of excessive UV ray exposure. Some are active in lobbying for state legislation to ban tanning bed use by minors. But sometimes we’re just a little bit apologetic about it and express the concern that we’re “annoying” friends and acquaintances with our melanoma-related facebook posts and shared links.

I don’t recall anyone associated with the NFL apologizing about splashing the playing field with pink last October. Did they annoy me just a bit? Yes. Should they care? No.

I know that some people I know think I should’ve “moved on” by now since I’m “cured” and all, but they’re just gonna have to live with it or block my posts. Because I’m not going to shut up.

I’ll leave you with a new version of The Who’s “Teenage Wasteland”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExnIXdvQ-8&feature=related


Out here in the field
We fight for what heals
We put our backs into more living
We do need to fight
To prove we’re right
We don't need to be forgiven

Don't fry
Don't braise and die
It's UV teenage wasteland

Children, fake the tan
We'll shout about tan bans
Put out C’s fire
And don't look past our shoulders
The evidence is clear
The Black C’s one to fear
Let's get together
Just so they get much older

Teenage wasteland
It's UV teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland

They're all wasted!

4 comments:

  1. I have a lot to learn from you! Great post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Chelsea. Just keep doing what you do so well, and to hell with the people in your life who don't get it. The people who count most certainly do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nothing pisses me off more than being told I need to move on since I am cured. I hope I never move on in the way they mean it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Keep up the good work. Spreading the word is so important. Even if only a few will listen, it might save one person from going thru what we all face on a yearly basis just to stay alive.

    ReplyDelete