Posted: Apr 10, 08
5:05am
I am currently battling a rare (unique actually) incurable (but hopefully not fatal) form of cancer. My family and friends have been surprised by my approach to fighting the big C (although I have not). Rather than take the "woe is me" self-pity path, I have attacked the cancer dragon with humor and just gone on with my life. I offer here for your examination and comment an excerpt from my essay "Tumor Humor."
I welcome all comments, including those from folks who think the self-pity route is the way to go, and that I'm full of crap.
Forewarned, "Tumor Humor" is definitely NOT politically correct.
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Tumor Humor
Round 1
“You’re not supposed to laugh about this.”
“Why not? Where is it written that a cancer diagnosis comes with a mandatory humorectomy?”
“Most people don’t find cancer funny.”
“Most people don’t find most of what I find funny, funny. You know, American Idol, stewed prunes, intelligent design. It’s who I was before, and it’s who I am now.”
Depending on who you talk to, my cancer is either stage IV or stage II, it has metastasized or it hasn’t, and it’s incurable or it ain’t. Obviously, some people with cancer feel the need to know all of this stuff. Personally, I don’t give a shit. My approach to the lumps is the same. Tell me what I need to do to get rid of them, chemotherapy, surgery, mud wrestling. I’m willing to try anything short of watching daytime television, living with my mother-in-law, or sacrificing my first born and even that last one is negotiable.
First of all, what’s with using Roman numerals for cancer staging? How pretentious can you get! After all, there are only four (IV) of them. As many as half of American college graduates can probably count that high. So what purpose does it serve to make it any more confusing than it already is? Roman numerals should be reserved for important things like Super Bowls.
My form of crud in the tub was diagnosed as leiomyosarcoma. Leiomyo to its friends. LMS to those who must use acronyms to confuse people, something I’m quite familiar with since I work for the United States government which has complete departments devoted to the care and feeding of these things (acronyms, not cancer – working for the government only causes cancer). I mean, an Internet search for LMS yields Learning Management System which “provides the platform for the enterprise’s online learning environment by enabling the management, delivery and tracking of blended learning” (ahh… something else I’m quite familiar with as a government employee, gobbledygook), the Last Man Standing Coop Mod which is “a doom 3 mod that aims to bring back the classic doom experience where you face swarms of attacking monsters to the adrenaline pumping energy of heavy metal soundtracks” (sort of like morning rush hour in Los Angeles), and a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange which makes “plastic coverings” (like Donald Trump’s hairpiece). But the search for LMS yielded no listing for leiomyosarcoma.
Leiomyosarcoma is quite rare as cancers go (and I wish mine would). It pops up in about 1 person out of every 250,000 in the U.S. each year, so if you were admiring the bling-bling of one of your homies in the Newark hood the other day when he told you that he just found out he has leiomyosarcoma, you can be comforted by the fact that the disease was probably eradicated from the entire city of Newark when he was blown away in that drive-by yesterday.
