Fungus...Aong Us

Skin Cancer!
FUNGUS!










One of the many joys of being old, pale, bald and my fathers son is a genetic weakness for skin related cancers, fungises, maladies, parasites and other grotesqe things which in Biblical times would have relegated me to a colony somewhere away from people. Clearly there is a certain portion of the public which would applaud me taken and removed generally from society but this would have nothing to do with my skin condition.

In everything, in every facet of my life, every weakness, vice, failure or unhappiness, no matter how small or petty, I blame my father. It is such a simple catch all. By the time when he was my age and teaching Sunday School he had a whole raft of little Lutheran kids thinking he might or might not be the devil, because they had already carved out two chunks of his head with skin cancer problems. He is also hair impaired and evidently as a child my father was forced by my grandmother to play outside all the time (babrbaric). My father by the way might or might not be the devil but the point was that he told the children that the equidistant scars on his forehead were where they had removed his horns. That is my dad.

My mother tried to keep me out of the sun and being a rather effeminate kid with a total lack of motor skills it was not too hard. In high school and college I took to wearing bandanas and ball caps since the hair started to thin at about 18. Anyway... I have been through a number of skin doctors but have finally found one to stay with. Of the several others a few stand out in blessed memory. One who was freezing half a dozen things on my body every time I showed up and another who never got that close. Everytime I tried to show him something on my skin he would move away and tell me “it is a fungus, we all have them all over our bodies”, like he was sharing some mystical incantation. He was not. My wife has since excused he backing away from my disease as “nearsightedness”. I prefer to think of him as a quack. The other guy burnt off or froze every anomoly which was comforting in that he hurt me, so he showed me that he cared.

Now I have a gal who is supposed to be awesome. She only sees patients once a month. She is with Barnes, a "teaching" hospital so she send an intern in to talk to me, look me over and make initial recommendations. I have to strip. I have to turn slowly. I have to expose my deteriorating, flabby, hairy, old man body to this doctor. Then the boss comes in, looks at her notes and we start all over again. It is a fairly complete process. They gave me some ointments and creams for various maladies and then shaved something off my head which she said "might be a basal cell". It was like it was no big deal, very slow moving cancer. I left feeling like I had been well looked over and responsible about my bad genetics. A few days later she called me and said it is Basal Cell. I said "no big deal" and then she did her best to tell me it was serious and referred me to the surgeon. I called the surgeon immediately and she was so concerned that she set an appointment to consult with me.... a month from then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_cell_carcinoma

So this week I go see the cutter. For your knowledge and care I have posted photos of a few of the things I have cut off my head and thrown into the yard. The message here is simple... wear a hat.