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Dear Margo: When Dad/Gramps Just Ain't Interested
The Palin Book, as Dear Margo Sees It
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C Jay!!!!!! Hurry, hurry! Look at the chart. They changed it. It actually makes sense now!!! Thank you, wowowow!!!
[PS I’ll live without the colors - I’m much rather have accurate data.]
It was in the midst of autumn - the raking of the leaves time in the Midwest. Great piles of leaves, lots of silliness … until, as my husband leaned over to pick up some leaves, I saw a dark spot on the back of his ear - a flat small freckle, undistinguishable except it stood out on fair skin with the gray-black color.
We were young and foolish. . but what saved his life is that I was a book lover who could not stop reading. And the memoir I had just read was the sad tale of a young woman with melanoma on her back in a place you also would never see alone. The picture fit. I insisted he visit the dermatologist the next day.
The worst form of skin cancer - melanoma and deadly - on his ear fortold doom. A plastic surgeon worked 7 hours in the operating room, and the following years flowed one after another with one therapy and then another, odd side effects due to surgery, more. Two young partners playing in the autumn leaves like kids were no longer that just a few weeks later. You grow up very fast dealing with the greatest adversity - adversity that continued to mold our lives for five years or more. He was one of a small percentage that made it.
When my own cancer struck, we were seasoned veterans in getting the top doctors and the best care we could. We knew the ropes well - and I have no doubt our experience saved my own life. In turn, as friends got their own bad news, I have been able to take the lead in helping them make the right decisions for their own care. . and they have told others. My phone rings often with calls for help and, frankly, I believe it has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done in life is to perhaps make their own chances for survival better. There is no way you can know how it is, how a person feels and reacts, unless you too have been there. So we have let our adversities work in a positive fashion and seen a few miracles on the way.
Joan, Yes, being observant is the answer. I was watching local news many years ago, I was in my early 30s, and they did a segment on melanoma. Warning signs - irregular borders, color variation, larger than a pencil eraser. I said, gee I have one of those on the back of my leg, mid calf. I went to the dermatologist and he removed it right away and had me follow up with further surgery. It turned out to be pre-cancerous but the Dr. told me I was VERY lucky AND that is a very common spot in women, along with the back.
My husband, a heavy smoker for 40 years before he gave it up 15 years ago, has had prostate, mouth and skin cancer ( the other Irish curse)…. luckily all kinds that can be cut out and needing no further treatment.
EKA … During the initial seige of so many years mixing with cancer patients during the many therapy sessions, I found it like learning on the job. We as women must be responsible for our own health, our own bodies, and when we sense something is not right any longer with us, we must move quickly. It is better to move on a false alarm than to wait too long.
In my 10 days in the oncology ward of Northwestern Hospital after my own surgery, I felt well enough to roam the halls, talking to patients, but mostly their caregivers in the hallways. Most of the saddest cases — the young women that were not going to survive suffering from cancers we normally are not familiar with, had stayed too long with their small town doctors. When it became beyond the scope of these doctors, they were sent on. But it was beyond the scope from the very beginning and yet they weren’t sent to the top until it was now palliative care - and death. They were generally under 40 … and the cancers were not caught in time and/or the people were so loyal to the locals that they didn’t know there was a much higher step they could take that might assure a better result.
We learn by each experience. I made the most of my two, asking questions, and most of all learning. When a person finds out he or she has cancer, they usually become emotional and can no longer think what should be the next step. Understandable. They need guidance but often are in kindergarten on cancer subjects. The National Institute of Health cancer section saved my life - truly. A free call, lots of personal caring, and direction to the doctors close by that specialized in MY cancer only. . and I was guided like a blind man might be through the steps. Their straight-forward informational literature on the subject arrived by fast mail - the contents an education in itself so that I could ask good questions when I saw the specialist.
I learned the ropes so to speak, and I have gotten so many others on the right track, being there to listen more than talk at any hour - for that is what a friend does. The news of cancer can leave you flat. There have been plusses long range for me though as I can be a steady arm to others who have more confidence because "I have been there". Nothing pleases me more.