Mole Ripper

Yesterday I wound up Melanoma/Skin Cancer Awareness Month with a visit to the University of Colorado Hospital’s Dermatology Clinic—another #GetNaked day, oh joy! Something rather ugly had popped up on my left shin in the past few weeks, so I went in expecting some carving. And I wasn’t ‘disappointed’. My faculty dermatologist thanked me for being so good at growing things and providing experience and training for his residents, as I’d “presented” my second squamous cell carcinoma in the past twelve months. (But, thank heavens, no melanoma worries!) My response was that I’d been meaning to ask if the hospital offered any sort of rewards points program for patients like me who’ve been frequent visitors to a half dozen or so of its various departments and clinics. Unfortunately, they don’t.

I’m once again reminded that my lifeguard job as a teenager didn’t pay nearly enough. Don’t hide indoors this summer but please, please wear some freakin’ sunscreen!

With thanks to all the good folks at the UCH Dermatology Clinic and with hope that I won’t win the skin cancer trifecta by showing up next time with a basal cell carcinoma, I’ll sign off with a song to all forms of “just skin cancer” to the tune of “Soul Stripper” from AC/DC…



Well, I met C back when ‘guardin’
Underneath that bold bad UV
Sitting with a tan on the towers
Looking as cool as can be
C stalked away in hundreds sun hours
Then C laid cruel hand on my back
Oh, I thought I ought to been ‘screening
I didn't know I fell in C’s trap

Then C made me flay things I didn't want to flay
Then C made me take meds I didn't want to take
C was a mole ripper, C took my parts
Mole ripper, and tore me apart

C started moving nice and easy
Slowly spreading inward in time
Killing off this nice little feeling
Ooooh, everyone C could find
And when C had me hollow and naked
That's when C put me down
Pulled out a knife and flashed it before me
Stuck it in and turned it around

Then C made me flay things I didn't want to flay
Then C made me take meds I didn't want to take
C was a mole ripper, C took my parts
Mole ripper, and tore me apart
Mole ripper!

Sun Hurts

This Friday I’ll be ‘celebrating’ the end of Melanoma Awareness Month with a trip to the dermatology clinic to #GetNaked. Probably in front of a crowd, because it’s a teaching hospital. And I have the sneaking suspicion that I won’t get out of that place with all of the skin I came in with.

When it comes to sun safety I “got religion” way too late in life, long after a lot of DNA damage was done to my old hide. But perhaps it’s not too late for you. Don’t hide inside but please cover up and wear some freakin’ sunscreen, okay?

I dislike both the song and the band, so it seems fitting that I commemorate this ‘joyous’ occasion with a butchered version of “Love Hurts” from Nazareth…



Sun hurts, sun scars
Sun wounds, and mars
Any part, not tough
Or strong enough

To take a lot of pain
Take a lot of pain
Sun needs quite a shroud
Moles went up in flame

Sun hurts
Sun hurts

I'm old, I know
But even so
I know a thing or two
I learned, from U

I really learned a lot
Really learned a lot
Sun can be a bain
It burns you without thought

Sun hurts
Sun hurts

Some fools think of tanning beds
Blister bliss, true leatherness

Some fools fool themselves, I guess
They're not foolin' C

I know it isn't true
I know it isn't true
Sun is just a fry
Suede look you will rue

Sun hurts
Sun hurts
Sun hurts

I know skin pale is cool
I know skin pale is cool
Sun is just a fry
Suede look you will rue

Sun hurts
Sun hurts
Sun hurts

Don't Fry Day 2014

I’m north of 60, and prior to checking into The Hotel Melanoma in 2003 I had a whole lot of unprotected fun in the sun. I was ‘tanning my hide’ while running, hiking, biking, skiing and playing a very sketchy game of golf. So parts of my mole-covered ‘hide’ bear a striking resemblance to worn leather golf grips. I was stupid—and the price of my stupidity was a Stage IIIC melanoma diagnosis and sixteen 24-hour cycles of toxic biochemotherapy. But that doesn’t mean you have to be. So tomorrow--Don't Fry Day--and every day, please protect the skin you’re in with some dang sunscreen and SPF 50 clothing.

In celebration of Don’t Fry Day 2014, here’s an ode to melanoma to the tune of “One Hit to The Body” from the Rolling Stones…



You fell out of the clear blue sky
To the darkness of moles
A spell of sore flesh did blight me
Fry crud starts to grow
So help me God

You burst in in a blaze of light
You unzippered the dark
Sun kiss took my health away
Sun cook strikes up the scars
And it's it's sun hits to the body
It runs straight to the scars
Sun hits to the body
Sure went straight to the scars
So help me God

It's one shot when you shove me
One shot when you grieve me
I don't need no unsure CT
I just need some peace
And it's sun hits to the body
It goes straight to skin scars
Sun choice calls out my name
It sure went straight to the mark

Sun punch and you knocked me down
Tore my defenses apart
Sun rounds took me out of the game
You did me some permanent harm
It took just sun hits
It took just sun hits
It’s plain enough to me
It’s plain enough to me
It’s plain enough to me
It's hurting me baby

Oh your ‘love’ is a sweet addiction
I can't clean you out of my veins
It's a lifelong affliction
That has damaged my brain
It took just sun hits to the body
To tear my defenses apart

Sun hits to the body
Sure went straight to the mark
Sun hits to the body
And this comes straight from the heart
Sun hits to the body
To the body, to the body
Comes straight to skin scars

Sun hits to the body
And this comes straight from the heart

Sun hits to the body
And this comes straight from the heart
That's all it took, that's all it took
So help me so help me so help me God
So help me so help me so help me God

Sun hits to the body
And this comes straight from the heart
Sun hits to the body
And this comes straight from the heart

Community, Collaboration, Caring

Thanks to the many thousands of mostly accidental Google search drive-by pageviews of this blog, I was invited to attend GlaxoSmithKlines’s 2014 Melanoma Summit this past Monday. In on-site or virtual attendance were a good number of my fellow melanoma bloggers and representatives of some of the leading melanoma nonprofit organizations. Our gracious hosts from GSK’s Oncology group brought this community together to talk about how we can all collaborate to better spread the message that melanoma can be deadly if not detected early--or better yet prevented--and to listen and learn how GSK might be able to support the efforts of this community.

Not to say that the presentations from GSK’s oncology team weren’t quite interesting and informative, but for me the highlight of the Summit was the opportunity to meet members of the GSK team and melanoma community in person and the informal one-on-one and group discussions and relationship building that took place during the course of the day. I was struck by what a rich and deep well of melanoma information and caring support resources exists for the benefit of both newly-diagnosed and ‘veteran’ melanoma patients and caregivers, a well that is continually fed not only by the bloggers and nonprofits in attendance but also by those who weren’t. And I came away with the strengthened conviction that we all— patient and caregiver melanoma bloggers and social media advocates, the healthcare industry, melanoma medical professionals, and nonprofit melanoma advocacy organizations—need to do more, much more, to work together to lead patients to that well. We can’t make them ‘drink’ from it, but no one who checks into The Hotel Melanoma needs to go it alone and thirsty.

Many thanks to my hosts at GSK Oncology for inviting me to the Summit. For the record, GSK reimbursed my travel and expenses to attend the GSK Melanoma Summit, but I was not asked to promote GSK or its medicines. This post is entirely voluntary, represents my own views and I was not paid to write it. (Then again I’ve never been paid to write any of my posts, which I’m certain will come as no revelation to any of my regular readers.)

And I certainly couldn’t sign off without a fractured song, one of hope that more melahomies will be led to the well mentioned above. To the tune of John Mellencamp’s “Check It Out”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qxDBiiVjlQ


A thousand-some poets
Streamin' out their words
’Bout a world full of Black C
And yearnin' to be heard
Future generations
Ridin' on ‘net highways that we built
I hope they have a better understanding

Check it out
Goin' to doc on Monday
Check it out
Got yourself a biopsy
Check it out
All the medical bills can’t be paid
You can't tell your best buddy that you love him
So check it out
How to make time slow
Check it out
Got a brand new mole to docs show
Check it out
Keepin' C’s attacks from your loved ones
Sharin’ all that we've learned about happiness

Check it out
A spot to say hello to my molemates
Check it out
Sometimes I question my own behavior
Check it out
Talkin' about C’s cures that we dream will draw nigh
Just to tell our souls there’s still lots of time
So check it out
Gettin' too drunk on Saturdays
Check it out
Playin’ football with the kids on Sundays
Check it out
Soarin' with the warriors all week long
And sharin’ all that we've learned about living
Sharin’ all that we've learned about living

A thousand-some poets
Streamin' out their words
Maybe someday
Those words will be heard
By future generations
Ridin' on ‘net highways that we built
Maybe they'll have a better understanding
Check it out
Hope they'll have a better understanding
Check it out
Maybe they'll have a better understanding
Check it out
Maybe they'll have a better understanding
Check it out
Hope they have a better understanding
Check it out.....

Watching The Snow Melt Rock

It’s been kind of a slow “watching the snow melt” day for me here in the foothills of the Rockies, so I’ve nothing better to do than inflict a blog post on you. Bored melavangelist nerd that I am, I stumbled into an article about work going on at the University of Colorado Cancer Center that has led to development of a sunscreen that not only prevents sunburn and skin cancer but can also detect and repair DNA damage from sun exposure. I think I could use me some of that. Check it out at Colorado Cancer Blogs.

I’ll soon be heading out into a sunny and snowy park in a futile attempt to moderate the frenetic energy of my nine-month-old golden retriever pup. And trust me when I say that my face will be slathered with sunscreen. For all who’re spreading the message this Melanoma Awareness Month that using a good sunblock might prevent a boatload of trouble, here’s the Hotel Melanoma rendition of AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)”…

We roll tonight [We're on tonight]
To the skin scar bite
Yeah, yeah, oh

Stand up and be counted
For what you are about to relieve
We are the ‘screeners
We'll give you everything you need
Hail hail to the pale times
'Cause ‘block has got the right of way
We ain't no legend, ain't no cause
We're just livin' for no rays

For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to block, we salute you

We ‘block at dawn on the front nine
Like a dolt fried out in the U
The sky's a-light with the skin scar bite
Derms will check our moles tonight

For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to rock, we salute you
Yes we do
For those about to block, we salute you

Oooh, salute!
Oooh, ooooh yeah

We're just a Black C gang for hire with a skin scar fire

Ready and aimed at U
Pick up your balls and load up your cannon
For a twenty-one gun salute

For those about to block - fire
We salute you
For those about to block, we salute you
Those about to block - fire
We salute you
Fire
We salute you
We salute you
Come on, whooa
For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to block, we salute you
For those about to block, we salute you
Shoot, shoot
Shoot, shoot

For those of you, for those who block
Yeah
(Ain't gonna get tired, won't take a break, we salute you.)

We salute you
We salute you
We salute you

Eye Of The Tiger

“This is your brain after using tanning beds. Don’t want a brain tumor? Don’t use them.” These are the powerful words of my melapal Donna, one gritty melanoma warrior who’s having a craniotomy this week to remove the brain metastasis imaged above. (And yes, she shared her MRI on Twitter, hoping that no one who sees it will follow in her footsteps.) Donna will be in the thoughts and prayers of a legion of melahomie admirers and supporters who are united in the firm conviction that the Black Beast has more than met its match in her. So put on your dancing shoes my friend, ‘cuz you’re going to be dancing with N.E.D.!

I couldn’t think of a more fitting anthem for Donna than Survivor’s “Eye of The Tiger”, so here goes…



Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance now I'm back on my feet
Just a ‘girl’ and her will to survive

So many times it happens too fast
You trade your tannin’ for Mole C
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the ‘thrill’ of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And this Black C survivor stalks her prey in the night
And C’s watchin’ us all with the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds, still she takes to the street
For the kill with the skill to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the ‘thrill’ of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And this Black C survivor stalks her prey in the night
And C’s watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

Risin' up, straight to the top
Had the guts, got the glory
Went the distance now I'm not gonna stop
Just a ‘girl’ and her will to survive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the ‘thrill’ of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And this Black C survivor stalks her prey in the night
And C’s watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger

I'd Really Rather Not

Early detection being a potential lifesaver when it comes to melanoma, Melanoma Research Foundation-- a very fine organization-- would like me to GetNaked in front of a mirror this month and perform a skin self-examination. And I’d really rather not. You see, it’s just about all I can 'bare' to look at myself long enough to shave when I climb out of the shower and a detailed inspection of my unprepossessing sixty-plus-year-old and mole-covered carcass just might send me over the edge. I’m guessing that my spouse of thirty-plus years isn’t going to volunteer for this duty either, and she’s certainly not about to delegate it. Plus I’ve been paying good money during these past ten years at the Hotel Melanoma for melanoma oncologists and dermatologists to bear this pain for me semi-annually.

So I don’t think I’ll GetNaked in ‘celebration’ of Melanoma Awareness Month. But you should. It just might save your life.

With deepest gratitude to the licensed healthcare professionals who have to see me naked, here’s the Hotel Melanoma rendition of “Never Knew How Much” from The Allman Brothers Band…

Time and time again I've felt these halls of cancer closing in
And more than once I've felt that lonely, lonely feeling
Wondering why and where I've been
Just about the time, I think I can't hold on
You're always there to keep me hanging on and I say

I never knew how much a tan needed a mole man
(No I never)
I never knew how much a boy needed a cure
(Needed a cure)
I never knew how much I needed you

Day after day I join the scan race
Tryin' to make the most of it
I keep on falling down, down the ladder
Still trying to stay on top of it
Just when I was sure
No skin could get no better
Oh I realize
I still need you more than ever

I never knew how much a tan needed a mole man
(No I never)
I never knew how much a boy needed a cure
(Needed a cure)
I never knew how much I needed you

Today I watch the sun set on the freeway
Spangled in the mountain air
But miles beyond, on the other end
I know, you'll always be waiting there
Docs you treat me
With your kindest hand
And in my heart, in my mind
And I'm so glad

I never knew how much a tan needed a mole man
(No I never)
I never knew how much a boy needed a cure
(Needed a cure)
I never knew how much I needed you

Melanoma Monday Rock

It’s Melanoma Monday Eve and I’ve been in one conflicted mood today. Part of me wants to celebrate, because I’m one blessed 10-year survivor of Stage IIIC melanoma who found out today that last week’s CT scan shows no evidence of metastatic disease and I may never again darken the door of the melanoma clinic that got me here. Another part of me wants to cry for my melahomies who haven’t been as fortunate. And the devil in me feels like crushing the skull of the Black Beast with my sand wedge, which in my hands is useful only as a murder weapon.

But then I remembered that today, tomorrow, and every other day during the rest of May is not all about me. It’s a time to educate, honor, and remember. And to keep on working to send the Black Beast straight through the Gates of Hell.

So I’ll sign off with this lyrical promise to the Beast, to the tune of AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill”…

Oh U Cancer who wants all tan as a beet
Cuz you don't know which braise you gonna burn
Just keep a coming and put your hand out to me
'Cause I’m the one who's gonna make YOU burn
I’m gonna take you down - down, down, down
So don't you fool around
I’m gonna pull it, pull it, pull the trigger
Shoot to kill, make you chill
Too many ‘homies with too many ills
Shoot to kill, make you chill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will
Yeah
I'm like evil, I’ll get under YOUR skin
Just like a bomb that's ready to blow
'Cause I'm McLegal, I caught UV thing
That’s all you, Black Beast, might need to know
I'm gonna take you down - yeah, down, down, down
So don't you fool around
I'm gonna put in a bullet, pull the trigger
Shoot to kill, make you chill
Too many ‘homies with too many ills
Shoot to kill, make you chill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will
'Cause I shoot to kill, and I'm ready to chill
I can't get enough, and I can't get my fill
I shoot to kill, make you chill
Yeah, pull the trigger
Pull it, pull it, pull it, pull the trigger
Oh
Shoot to kill, make you chill
Too many ‘homies, with too many ills
I said, shoot to kill, make you chill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will
'Cause I shoot to kill, and I'm ready to chill
And I can't get enough, and I can't get my fill
'Cause I shoot to kill, play it again
Yeah
Shoot you down
Yeah
I'm gonna get you to the bottom and shoot you
I'm gonna shoot you
Oh hoo yeah yeah yeah
I'm gonna shoot you down yeah yeah
I'm gonna get you down
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Shoot you, shoot you, shoot you, shoot you down
Shoot you, shoot you, shoot you down
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ooooooh
I'm gonna shoot to kill
Make you chill
Shoot to kill
yeah, ooh yeah