Brown Fried Cure

I pretty much lucked into seeing the merry band of specialists at the University of Colorado Cancer Center’s melanoma clinic because my primary care doc, who spotted and biopsied a tiny little suspicious mole, immediately sent me there when the pathology report said I’d checked into The Hotel Melanoma. So I’ve often wondered whether I ever would’ve found my way there on my own, instead of putting my fate in the hands of some oncologist who sees a handful of new melanoma patients each year and couldn’t have offered me the treatment option of biochemotherapy, which it seems few Stage IIIc patients receive.

Nearly ten years later I’m still here, perhaps not entirely “cured”, but at low enough risk for a recurrence to be kicked halfway to the curb to annual rather than semi-annual checkups. (Thank heavens, since the university hospital campus has grown so large that I now have to stalk departing patients to score a parking place.) So I owe these folks a big debt of gratitude that I’ll probably never be able to repay. It’s not that I’m unwilling to pose naked for a melanoma awareness t-shirt and donate the sales proceeds to UCCC, I’m just dead certain nobody would buy one.

As far as I know, none of these docs read my blog and they probably don’t even know it exists. But what the heck, I’ll dedicate a song to them anyway. To the tune of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”…



Hey, where did C grow?
Rays then the pains came!
Down in my hollows
Playing a new game,
Scanning and a-humming, hey, hey,
Dripping and a-pumping
In the misty chemo fog when
My, my heart stopped thumping
Thank you, I found trial cure,
You, my brown fried cure.

Whatever happened
To U days no mo’
Glowing brown, sun tan lines with the
fast blister baby oil.
Tanning in the sunlight’s past thing
Hide behind a parasol
Nipping and some trial flings
All along the clinic halls
Thank you, I found trial cure,
You, my brown fried cure.

You do dismember them ‘skin cancer’ things
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
Just like that
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
La dee dah.

So hard to hide from rays
Now that hide’s all cancer prone.
I saw you just the other day,
My, how U has grown!
Cast my memory back there, Lord,
Sometime I'm overcome thinking about
Taking drugs in a mean blast
Behind’s the Ray C ‘fun’
Thank you, I found trial cure,
You, my brown fried cure.

You do dismember them ‘skin cancer’ things
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
Slaying with a mean blast
Sha la la la la la la la la la la dee dah
Dee dah dee dah dee dah dee dah dee dah dee
Sha la la la la la la la la la la la la
Dee dah la dee dah la dee dah la