Hail Dents

What follows is a short excerpt from my first blog post published two years ago today. Seemed like it needed a song…

Few cancer survivors seem to come out of their cancer treatments unscathed. For most of us, the common combination of major surgery, chemotherapy and radiation result in some lingering and perhaps permanent hangover effects and challenges that affect our daily lives. In my own case, it’s a bit of ‘golden retriever brain’ and peripheral nerve damage from biochemotherapy, and some loss of function in my left arm and hand due to the schwannoma tumor. I’m truly thankful for my blessings of everything I still have that works reasonably well and everything I can still do. And yet I’m also mildly annoyed and frustrated by the daily challenges of living with these effects and stubbornly optimistic they’ll just go away one of these days if I keep working hard enough at beating them. These negative emotions usually lead to feelings of guilt for my seeming ingratitude for survival—and a sense that I should just suck it up and stop whining. I’m convinced, nonetheless, that a bit of annoyance and frustration with the effects of treatment, and a good measure of denial about their permanence, are all for the good for a survivor, as these emotions reflect an enduring fighting spirit that is determined to overcome the disease. Passive acceptance is not the state in which we should ever want to live.

And now for that song, my version of Santana’s “No One To Depend On”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYc-zH0Ak6Q


I ain't got no body that I can depend on
I ain't got no body that I can defend on

Sure got some buddies that I can depend on
Sure got some buddies that I can unbend on

Ain't got no sun (it tingles my body)
That I glow from (no tanning my body)
That you can depend on (no tangle with doctors)

Ain't got no sun (it tingles my body)
Got old body (no tango or party)
I won’t wear Depends on (no trouble with bladder)

I ain't got no body that I can depend on (no tangle with Black C)
I ain't got no body that I can defend on (no tangle with Black C)