My Cancer

I have cancer. I got the diagnosis last week: a stage 3 malignant melanoma on my scalp. I will start immunotherapy tomorrow. My plan is to write a series of posts as I go through the experience.

The second the doctor told me it was cancer, the landscape of my life changed completely. In light of my Long Covid I had already been thinking about my life to figure out what is most important to me; what is it I want to spend my time on from now on. The cancer immediately crystallized those thoughts. With near perfect certainty (after all, perfect isn’t an attainable thing) everything jumped into a crystal clear focus. The immediate and vivid mental picture that I had was of looking down upon the downtown of a big city, with its tall buildings, each building representing some aspect of my life. But, instead of there being many tall buildings, there were a few thousand mile tall buildings, and all the other buildings had shrunk to be only a few feet or a few inches tall (I’m looking at you Performance Self Evaluation.)

What were the few remaining tall buildings? 1.) making my health my top priority, 2.) spending time with my family and friends, 3.) Spending time with the pups, 4.) spending time reading, writing, and playing D&D.

I’ve already let a few close friends know about the diagnosis, and every one of them acted in the same beautiful, human, way; “let me know if there is anything I can do.” So, here’s the first thing: I’d love to visit with my friends: an email, online messages, texts, a phone call, a video chat; and if you happen to be in the Denver metro area, perhaps getting together, sitting down with a beverage, and catching up (but no rush; I envision my inboxes being inundated tomorrow, and me not being able to respond to most of them. If in the next few months you think of me, say hi.). The most important thing is this:, If, as we’re visiting, I say something that I clearly think is funny but actually isn’t funny at all, you must act if it was one of the funniest things you’ve ever heard (but not in a patronizing way, of course.)

More important than that, if you are friends with my wife Janel or kid Morgen, think about reaching out to them. All three of us are going on this journey into Terra Incognita together.

I’ll keep everyone posted.