Melanoma Getaway

Always a master at stating the obvious, I’d say that “The Holidays” can be a quite difficult time for residents of The Hotel Carcinoma. Social media are full of posts and photos depicting perfect, Norman Rockwellian-like family celebrations full of happiness and good cheer. And we may fall into the trap of believing that the poster’s holiday time truly was that idyllic. Meanwhile, we may be grieving the loss of a loved one, contemplating our own mortality, getting over the last treatment event or anticipating the next one, experiencing scanxiety, playing the waiting game with pending diagnostic test results, or worrying about our rising medical bills. I’ll be ‘celebrating’ the first business day of 2014 by heading off to my favorite cancer center for some minor surgery to clean up the remains of a squamous cell carcinoma and being thankful it’s not another melanoma. So as I think about how we melahomies might go about making the best we can of this season of conflicting emotions, I’m reminded of something I wrote in my first blog post…

I really don’t mean to be morbid in using the Hotel Melanoma metaphor. Trust me, dying would not be my preferred means of “checking out”. Rather, my preferred meaning of “checking out” is the idea of seizing those times of normalcy that I think all we survivors experience and enjoying them to the hilt. Even at the worst of times in the summer and fall of 2003, there were still many times of furlough when I lived in a nice moment of ordinary life when I’d forget I have cancer. These moments may not come any time you like, but they do come. We need to search for and embrace those times, holding on as firmly and for as long as we can, precisely because we know that sooner or later something will probably happen that will remind us we can’t leave the Hotel.

Doing my best to “check out” now and then during this ‘most wonderful time of the year’, I’ll sign off with The Hotel Melanoma rendition of “Alabama Getaway” from The Grateful Dead…

Thirty two weeks in the onc’s home
Melanoma’s tryin’ for some
Before I have to hit it
I hope C's got the sense to run

Season those poor girls sun skin
Promise them tan D thing
Reason they be grievin’
C tears a big wide round ring

Melanoma getaway, getaway
Melanoma getaway, getaway
Only way to please me
Turn around and leave
And walk away

Majordomo Doctor Molejangles
Sit down and have a talk with me
What's this about melanome
Keeps comin’ back to me?

Lured by fees to the poor house
Dermy docs began to mock tan fries
Forty-nine sister mates all had
Melanoma in their eyes

Melanoma getaway, getaway
Melanoma getaway, getaway
Only way to please me
Turn around and leave
And walk away

Why don't we just give melanoma
Rope enough to hang itself?
Ain't no call to worry the dermies
They'll prob’bly take care of themselves

Twenty-third Psalm Majordomo
Reserve me a table with Thee
In the Valley of the Shadow
Just You, melanoma and me

Melanoma getaway, getaway
Melanoma getaway, getaway
Only way to please me
Turn around and leave
And walk away