If You Could Read My Hind

Just a little song for the unfortunate young dermatology resident who had to perform my last full body skin check and tell me I was in for another whack at a regrowth of squamous cell carcinoma, to the tune of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”…

)

If you could read my ‘hind, doc
What a tale my spots could tell
Just like some old-time UV
'Bout a ghost from sun worship spell
With a cancer dark bore some treatments strong
With stains upon my sheets
You know that ghost is C
And I will never be set free
As long as I've a ghost that you can't see

If I could read your mind, doc
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a cancer’s back novel
The times the drugs won’t quell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take

I'd block the rays like a UV star
Who got burned in a teenage fit
Enter number two
A Doogie green to play the scene
Of carving all the ‘good’ skin out of me
But for now doc, let's be real
I never thought I’d get back this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where C went wrong
But the healing's gone and I just can't get it back

If you could read my ‘hind, doc
What a tale my spots could tell
Just like some old-time UV
'Bout a ghost from sun worship spell
With a cancer dark bore some treatments strong
With stains upon my sheets
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just tryin' to understand
The feelings that C’s back
I never thought I would feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where C went wrong
But the healing's gone and I just can't get it back