All Things Melanoma

I know of dozens of very fine blogs, Facebook communities, and nonprofit organization websites that are a rich source of knowledge, support and inspiration for anyone living with melanoma. Together they comprise hundreds of articulate and passionate voices that I so wish I could’ve heard when checking into The Hotel Melanoma in 2003. And there are probably many, many more sites that I’ve yet to bumble into in the course of trying to navigate the vast sea of the Internet.

With a firm push and a lot of design help from our Hotel Chaplain, I’ve started a new website called All Things Melanoma. ATM is an effort to compile a comprehensive set of links to online resources for melanoma warriors and their families and friends. I hope it becomes a hub and gateway that makes things just a bit easier for melanoma warriors in search of online information, support and inspiration to help them along in their journeys. But I may have succeeded only in creating yet another melanoma site that gets lost in the cacophony of the Internet. We’ll see.

Upon logging into Facebook this morning, I was immediately reminded by lots of great posts from mole mates that this is the first day of our very own awareness month. (Well sort of, because officially we have to share it with the broader “skin cancer” world.) Maybe ATM will help to make your beautiful voices and messages heard by many more of your fellow mates. But I was also very saddened to be reminded that we’re going to lose some bad ass warriors this month. Just please don’t let me hear anybody say that any of these tough souls “lost” their battle with the black devil. There are simply no “losers” among this warrior corps.

I’ll leave you with a new version of “Even The Losers” from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E30XxSYgmqo&feature=fvwrel

Well it is nearly summer, we share the same roof
Yeah we poke tanning vets and we howl at the moon
And we show our scars so everyone sees
Mates, we won’t ever make it easy to forget about C


Black C’s time is comin’, cure this thing for real
Yeah we will diss quack liars and untruths reveal
’Cause every word they say the truth conceals
Mates, we won’t ever make it easy to forget about C


Black C’s the only loser
Gets lucky sometimes
We’re never losers
Keep a little bit of pride
We get lucky sometimes


Our scars speak of our recent past
Sharks in our waters like Black C pass
Should have known right then we are all real bad ass
It's not a drag when we live days like last


Black C’s the only loser
Gets lucky sometimes
We’re never losers
Keep a little bit of pride
We get lucky sometimes


Black C’s the only loser
Gets lucky sometimes
We’re never losers
Keep a little bit of pride
We get lucky sometimes