So, several weeks ago, and for the second time in my life, I found out I had cancer. The first time it was Hodgkin lymphoma, which has been in remission for almost two years now. This time it was a melanoma, which presented (of all places), on my right cheek.
I realize WHY it is most skin cancer winds up presenting on the face at some point, if not right off the bat, but it's just so damn cruel. It's not bad enough that you spend most of your teen years (or, if you're like me, most of your life since puberty) worrying about your complexion, but if you wind up with skin cancer, hey, here's an unsightly facial growth that not only won't go away, but they'll have to go in and cut it out of you.
Death is the ultimate F-U from cancer, I know that. But this one feels pretty high up on the list.
It's been less than 48 hours since the doc took scalpel to skin, sliced off part of my face, and (as it turns out) had to go in and take a few lymph-nodes out of my neck as well. It's like a toll I have to pay the ferryman every time I get a bad diagnosis at this point. "Got cancer? It's gonna cost you a few lymph-nodes to get to the other side."
My face is puffy, my neck is swollen, my right earlobe looks like a really fatty piece of bacon and thanks to my incredibly shitty veins I have bruises up and down my hands and arms. It took a pit crew of doctors and nurses to place an IV before surgery, which they had to change twice after they finally got me knocked out. I look like I was attacked by several swarms of deadly wasps.
Even better? It isn't over yet.
They have to make sure they've cleared all of the melanoma out, and ensure that the lymph-nodes it was connected to aren't cancer ridden, then they can officially sew me back up and try to make me look as close to normal as possible. Jokes on them, I never looked normal to begin with.
Now I've got at least few more days of dealing with a somewhat-open wound on my face, which makes bathing damn near impossible. But if there's writing in the margins, or the ferryman's coins turn out to be damaged, we go to Plan B.
No, I don't know what Plan B is. In this entire scenario I'm B.A. Baracus. The cancer is the mission, and Hannibal, Face and Murdock gotta slip a little something special into my milk to get me on that helicopter so we can fight the fight. I just wake up and do what they tell me once we're there.
But I'm still here to complain about it, and for right now that's good enough for me.
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