Hypochondria Rock

Nearly twenty years ago when I was in far better shape and ambitiously adventurous, I went on a five-day mountain bike trip in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. I learned a lot of things on that trip (like I can’t race guys who are ten or fifteen years younger) but one that’s stuck with me is the importance of adequate hydration when exercising in heat and high altitude. The group’s slightly annoying riding guides were constantly quizzing us about the color of our urine (if it isn’t clear you need to be drinking more water) because we were a very, very long ways away from emergency medical treatment in Moab and the last thing they needed on their hands was a seriously dehydrated rider.


You may be asking yourself by now what, if anything, this has to do with melanoma. Well, I’ve been feeling pretty ill the past several days and, being Mr. Paranoid Hypochondriac, was starting to think I needed to call Dr. Death and cry wolf. But then I finally realized what was really going on—that I’d managed to get myself very dehydrated out on the links and walking trails on hot and dry summer days. Will this old dog ever learn that he can have routine medical ailments completely unrelated to melanoma? Oy.

Oh, dear melanoma, you may have made me slightly crazy but you are NOT going to win this fight. To the tune of The Cars’ “You Might Think”…



You might make me crazy
From hanging ‘round with you
Maybe you think I'm lucky
To have nothing that’s new
But I think ‘bout your guile
And inside me you’ve run wild
You might make me foolish
And maybe that’s one truth
You might make me crazy
But all you’ve done is through


You might make me hysterical
But I’ve glowed from your heat
I think you're in my boonies
And ever hide so deep
So I think ‘bout your guile
Then you crash my fragile smile
You might make me foolish
Then I think you blew
You might make me crazy
But all you’ve done is through


And it's so hard to take
There's no escape from out sun’s bake
You kept me glowing ‘til the drugs went down
You kept me glowing


You might make me delirious
Some days I hunt you down
But somewhere sometime
When I’m furious
I'll beat black around
And I think that you're wild
And so uniquely guiled
You might make me foolish
This chancy bout with you
You might make me crazy
But all you’ve done is through