A Boomer's Birthday Wish

My 50th birthday ‘present’ in 2003 turned out to be a melanoma diagnosis. There was a brief period when the medics seemed pretty certain I was at Stage IV, and at the time that diagnosis would almost certainly have been a death sentence. Luckily, it turned out I was ‘only’ at Stage IIIc and the treatment games began.

I’ll be turning 60 on Thursday, am damn glad to still be here, and there’s just one thing I want for my birthday. A cure for melanoma and the demolition of the Hotel Melanoma. And a cure for every other brand of cancer too. My birthday wish isn’t going to come true but, oh my, how very far we’ve come in improving cancer treatment over the past decade, particularly for Stage IV melanoma

So instead of celebrating the cure, I’ll be heading out to the golf course on Thursday and seeing how few holes it takes me to shoot my age. Just hoping to keep the ball inbounds and make it to the back nine, I’ll sign off with the Hotel Melanoma rendition of U2’s “Bad”…



If you wish and yearn away
If you bare yourself in U again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it blow
Dismember
Dislocate

If I could blow this
Lightless fright mine to the wind
Leave this park of pain
See you walk, walk away
Into the light
And through the pain
Into the high life
And through C’s flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the rays

To let it blow
And so to break away
To let it blow
And so break away

I hide from rays
I hide from rays
Hide from rays
I'm not weeping
Oh, no, no, no

If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors lie in hues of black
Hue warriors fly brand Black C flag
Colors clash, collide in derm doc eyes

If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it blow...

This desperation
Sick location
Medic station
Conflagration
Devil’s ration
’Skin C’ nation
Hide ablation
Desolation
Let it blow

And so break away
To let it blow
And so break away
To let it blow
And so to break away

I hide from rays
I hide from rays
Hide from rays
I'm not weeping
Oh, no, no, no