Other C’s …

Now that Lymphoma has been absorbed into my life, I have time to reflect on the type of cancers I have managed to avoid:

– Skin cancer … don’t have it which is incredible seeing as I played about 1000 softball games during the 80’s and 90’s with almost all of them in the sun and I never wore a hat or wore sunscreen. My skin should look like it could hold about five days of rain but good genetics trumps the Sun. And I don’t go to Tanning Salons either as most people lay in those beds naked … and grinding some sweating, leather-skinned person’s ass-matter into my body while getting radiation poisoning seemed dumb as shit.

– Testicular cancer … don’t have it primarily because since 1986, I have checked myself for testicular cancer every three and half hours. If it ever strikes me, it will get me be somewhere between lunch and dinner. Otherwise I have it covered, especially on Sunday mornings when I am reading the newspaper in my pajamas – prime testicular cancer checking time.

– Colon cancer … hey the whole fun of a colonoscopy is the prep work the day before the procedure. Nothing more enjoyable than starving yourself all day while shitting out Buick’s every 30 minutes. The procedure is actually a non-event as they whack you with the drug Verset and you wake up clothed and violated in the waiting room. I’ve actually had two colonoscopies … yep, as soon as I woke up from the first one, I said “Damn Doc, hit me again, that was fucking great”.

– Lung cancer – My dad had lung cancer caused by smoking two packs of Marlboro’s a day for 60 years. I drove him to Chemo for lung cancer and dropped him off at the lobby and then parked the car. When I walked back to the lobby, he was sitting down smoking a cigarette.

This was the conversation:

Me – “Dad, do you see any irony in smoking a cigarette on your way to getting chemo for lung cancer?”

Dad – “I figured any cancer this cigarette might cause can easily be wiped away with today’s chemo session.”

Me – “Tell me I was adopted, even if it’s a lie.”