Hey You

My golf date with the Geezer League got rained out today. (This is a blessing since we badly need the rain and I might as well be chipping and putting with my eyes closed.) So I’ve nothing better to do than be annoying and beg for financial support for melanoma research. Nearly everyone who reads this blog is already an inmate at The Hotel Melanoma, and I know you mole mates are already doing all you can to support the cause. But one never knows how many misdirected Google searchers might get lured here and actually read this post before realizing that it’s not ‘Dr.’ Mercola’s quackery blog. So here goes…

There are several worthy melanoma nonprofits out there, like the Melanoma Research Alliance featured in the recent Stand Up To Cancer fundraising telecast. My personal favorites are selfishly close to home-- the Lewis Melanoma Research Fund, which supports my doc’s research efforts, and the AMC Cancer Fund, which supports the University of Colorado Cancer Center. And I’m participating in the AIM For A Cure Melanoma Walk in Charlotte, NC on November 17th.

If you choose to support one of my favorite melanoma nonprofits I’ll certainly be grateful, but all I can reasonably ask/beg is that you choose your own favorite organization and support it generously. The Indoor Tanning Association seems to be dead set on creating the demand for a new wing here at The Hotel Melanoma for former teen tanners, so we need your help in finding more effective treatments and, maybe someday, a cure. The life you help save just might be your own.

From Pink Floyd, “Hey You”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gELhNbDcLE0



Hey you, not yet in C’s fold
Getting UV, baking moles
Can you feel C?
Hey you, tanning all the while
With bitchy tweets and snake oil smiles
Can you heal C?
Hey you, come help us to bury black fright
Won't give in without a fight.

Hey you, out there lying prone
Getting basted like a scone
Would you touch C?
Hey you, in salons out at the mall
Waiting for some sun to come out
Would you touch C?
Hey you, would you help me to carry C’s stone?
Open your heart, it’s coming home.

And it’s not only fantasy.
The wall’s not too high,
As you will see.
With fatter wallets plied,
We could stop Black C.
With new cures end cancer’s old reign.

Hey you, out there on C road
Always buying what Oz sold,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond these walls,
Getting mottled at the mall,
Can you help me?
Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.

Playing With A Full Deck?

It’s time for me to schedule a MRI scan of Mr. Schwannoma and a follow-up appointment with my favorite nuke doc, so I was shuffling through my deck of University of Colorado Cancer Center M.D. cards to find his appointment line number. It’s a fairly full deck, at least compared to the deck my spouse would claim my chemo-depleted brain is playing with. At age 9 I collected baseball cards and now at age 59 I collect oncology cards. Life has a way of circling around on you. Does anyone want to trade a Mickey Mantle rookie card for my radiation oncologist’s card, even up?


And the same old, same old CIGNA claims department drill now begins. Dr. No’s office will get my MRI preauthorized. And when the hospital submits the bill, CIGNA will deny payment, claiming the scan is medically unnecessary. Or that Mr. Schwannoma is an uncovered preexisting condition. Or both. And I’ll eventually win the argument.

But, hey, life is good and I retain high hopes that one day we’ll all celebrate the demolition of The Hotel Melanoma and dance as its walls come rumbling down. Meanwhile, I’ll sign off with my rendition of John Mellencamp’s “Crumblin’ Down”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PErUiAyVoGc


Some tumors ain't no damn good
You can't trust 'em you can't bust 'em
No good read goes unpunished
And I don't mind bein' their whippin' boy
I've had that pleasure for years and years
Yo, Yo I ever was a tanner--tell me what ‘screen can I use
Second guessed is what you get when insurers bend the rules
And time respects no patient--what you claim up they’ll stall
I’m waiting on hold to make my pay beggin’ calls

Saw my pictures at the doctor’s
Read the news around doc’s face
And now some people just want to beat me on claim

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' rumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin' down

Some people say I'm a blogger that’s crazy
I'm law-educated--my opinion costs somethin’!
But I know I'm a real bad dancer
Don't need to look over my shoulder to see what I'm after
Every body's got its problems--ain't no new news here
I'm in same old trouble I’ve been havin' for years
Don't confuse mole problem with scar tissue, cured?
It's recurrence fear
Just a human desire to have my scans clear

Wanna put my arms around you
Hear your songs in my ear
C can bend me C can’t break me
So I’d better scan clear

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' rumblin'
When these walls come tumblin' tumblin' down

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' rumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin' down

Wanna put my arms around you
Hear your songs in my ear
C can bend me C can’t break me
So I’d better scan clear

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' rumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin' down

A Beautiful Day

This weekend a pink horde will descend upon Garden of The Gods Park in Colorado Springs for the “Guess Who” Race For The Cure. (A Pinktober race at this elevation would be at risk of being snowed out, so the pink frenzy season starts early in these parts.) The event will benefit from an abundance of promotional local media coverage and corporate sponsorship. And that’s all simply wonderful. And I’m just more than a little envious, in the sense that I’d love to see a fraction of that success replicated for the benefit of my mole mates.


Someday, somehow, the Black Cancer Posse will get there, at least at a level commensurate with our numbers. Please take a first little step in that direction by either joining us at the AIM For A Cure Melanoma Walk in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17 or sponsoring a participant. This, my friends, will be a beautiful day. And maybe on another beautiful day in the not-too-distant future I’ll join a black horde descending upon Garden of The Gods Park.

The Hotel Melanoma rendition of U2’s “Beautiful Day”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o


The heart is in gloom, cries out blue lonely sounds
’Cuz there's no boom, no race to ‘tend in this town
You’re out of luck with the passion that you’d like to share
The Black C lacks bucks and you're not runnin’ anywhere
You’d love to find mole friends to join you out on a race
Someone that would ‘friend’ your brand so it earns its place

It's a beautiful day,
The sky’s fall and you feel like
It's a beautiful day,
Don’t let it get away

You’re on C’s road but you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud, in the maze of cure imagination
You loved your brown even if that’s deadly skin hue
U’s been all over, now you’ve been all over U

It's a beautiful day,
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day,

Join me, Black C’s due one mother race
Show some love, I know it’s not a hopeless case

See Black World with ‘screen for you
See skin checks right in front of you
See the tan ones joining our crowd
See the ‘noma cheats cheering our plea out
See the partyin’ fires at night
See the park fields at first light
See the horde with a smile on our mouth
After pink flood fall’s black colours came out

Will be a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
A beautiful day

Join me, Black C’s due one mother race
Beat C, I know it’s not a hopeless case

Tan you don’t have, you don’t need it now
When you don’t glow you can feel it somehow
Tan you don’t have, you don’t need it now
Don’t need it now
Will be a beautiful day

In Good Hands

During my college days I worked as a surgical orderly in a big hospital. It was an unskilled “fetch and carry” sort of job where not much was expected of me other than providing the muscle to move an anesthetized patient from Point A to Point B and to hustle when a surgeon needed something like getting a tissue sample to the pathology lab for a quick read while the patient was on the table. But I witnessed the histrionic behavior of the small minority of surgeons who act like prima donnas and abuse the surgical staff. A few years later I was a baby lawyer working in a firm that did medical malpractice defense work and played minor roles in defending a few malpractice lawsuits against surgeons. (My favorite defendant was an osteopath who removed a perfectly healthy appendix to treat his patient’s recurring headaches and seriously botched the unnecessary operation to boot.) Later on in my legal career, working as a banking lawyer, my only dealings with surgeons occurred when I was trying to help clean up the mess they’d made with some boneheaded tax shelter investment that put them in financial trouble despite the fact they earned high six-figure incomes.


So I must confess that I checked into The Hotel Melanoma not having the highest opinion of surgeons. Thankfully, however, I’ve been the beneficiary of the skills of a couple of very fine, kind and gentlemanly surgeons and my opinion of this medical specialty has vastly improved. With gratitude to both of them, here’s my version of James Taylor’s “Handy Man”…



Hey mates, won’t you gather round
Look at what I'm cutting down
Yeah maties, I'm your handy man

I'm not the kind to use a pencil or rule
I'm handy in the gloves and I'm so cool
Fixin’ broken parts, I know that I truly can

If your broken parts should need repair
Oh mole mates, I’m The Man to see
I fix your C things, you tell all your friends
They'll come runnin' to me

Here is the main thing I want to say
I'm busy 24 hours a day
Fixin’ broken parts, I know that I truly can

Come-uh come-uh come-uh come come
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Come-uh come-uh come-uh come come
You’ll come runnin’ to me

Here is the main thing I want to say
I'm busy 24 hours a day
Fixin’ broken parts, I’m your handy man

Come-uh come-uh come-uh come come
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Come-uh come-uh come-uh come come
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Open Season

For some, September marks the beginning of various and sundry hunting seasons. For me, it marks the beginning of open season on me as a patient.

I’ve already knocked off a visit to my primary care doc, who refuses to renew prescriptions for blood pressure and cholesterol meds unless I see him annually for a checkup and lab work. Granted I’m 59 and already a one-time loser of the carcinoma sweepstakes, but this fellow takes way too much interest in my prostate health.

This month I’ll see my favorite radiation oncologist (f/k/a Dr. No) and have a MRI to see how Mr. Schwannoma is doing after being nuked several years ago. I find MRI’s only slightly more pleasant than watching the endless barrage of negative and misleading political ads (from both parties and all super-PACs) on television.

In October, it’ll be time for a six-month checkup with my favorite melanoma doc (f/k/a Dr. Death), when we’ll spin the diagnostic Wheel of Fortune to determine whether any scans or other tests will be performed.

I’ll cap off my season of poking and prodding in November, with a retina scan and visit to the ophthalmologist who will once again tell me he doesn’t know what the cause of my leaky blood vessel problem is and that there’s no cure for it. So why am I here? I suspect only because I’m just about the only patient at the eye institute who isn’t on Medicare and they receive a much higher reimbursement rate for seeing me.

I’m tempted to just blow it all off and stay safe at home, so I’ll sign off with my take on The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH21LEmfbQ


Wooh!
Oh yeeeeeaaaaah!

Doctor you got to let me know
Should I pray because I glow?
If you say that I’m not fine
I’ll be here ’til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I pray because I glow?

It’s always tease, tease, tease
You’re happy when I’m paying fees
One day it’s fine, and next it’s back
So if you want me coming back
Well come on and let me know
Should I pray because I glow?

Should I pray because I glow now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there could be trouble
An’ when I pay it will be double
So come on and let me know!

This kind physician’s bugging me
(his indecision me protestuh!)
If you can’t cure me, set me free
I have some questions, answer me
Exactly how’m I supposed to see?
(time for scannin’ and pokes)
Don’t you know which gown even fits me?
(why do I have to wear this blue dress?)
Come on and let me know
(my time’s important too!)
Did I fool it or did it grow?
(Schwannoma is still stable?)

Sit!
(tell me NED, no mo’ suffer)
Should I pray because I glow now?
(tell me NED, no mo’ ‘fusin)
Should I pray because I glow now?
(tell me NED, no mo’ chemo)
If I glow there will be trouble
(CIGNA say preexisting condition)
And if they pay you’ll dose me double
(give me chemo on double)
So you gotta let me know
(pardon me but waitin’ causes fear)
Did I fool it or did it grow?
(tell me NED, no mo’ nukin’)

Should I pray because I glow now?
(tell me NED, no mo’ ‘fusin’)
If I glow there will be trouble
(CIGNA say preexisting condition)
And if they pay you’ll dose me double
(give me protons on double)
So you gotta let me know
(pardon me but waitin’ causes fear)
Should I pray because I glow?