I was working through the day yesterday, in my yard with my Wife and oldest Grandson. It was April Fool's Day and the pranks were running through my head like a kid through a sprinkler on a hot summer day.
Then I had some of the morbidly funny thoughts I have from time-to-time as a result of surviving cancer (twice). I settled on a fantasy world created as I mowed the lawn, cut & pruned some trees and pulled enough weeds to make my arms feel like Popeye after he's downed his spinach. (For those of you born in the last 30 years, you can find more on Popeye here).
I thought, "what if this whole cancer thing was an April Fool's joke?" (Yes, a very bad and cruel joke at that. But like I said, my sense of humor was at an all-time morbid high). What if I was just part of an experiment? I mean, head & neck cancer ("you mean, throat cancer or brain cancer, right?" Wrong)? Caused by the HPV virus? In Men? Yeah, it was quite unusual in 2007, as up until then conversation was centered around cervical cancer and the PAP with HPV test for young females. (My Daughter went through this, so I have some knowledge, thank you very much). What if they looked at me and said, "well, he looks like he can handle this. Let's try to kill him while we keep him alive." We'll put a feeding tube into his stomach––and make him wait for 4 weeks to figure how it works since we've NEVER seen this kind of feeding tube in a patient––cut our part of his tongue, scrape his larynx, remove his tonsils, yank 4 teeth out of his head, give him chemo right out of clinical trials and 7 weeks of radiation (35 total) WHILE we're giving him chemo every Friday for the next 13 weeks and tell him he has to miss work for the next 6 months. Oh, and just when he's finished with all that, we'll give him skin cancer, cut it out of two places (15 and 10 stitches, respectively, and two cold "burns" to remove two other danger spots) and tell him to stay out of the sun as well as out of work.
Yeah, that would've been a helluva April's Fools joke.
I'm not laughing.
Then I had some of the morbidly funny thoughts I have from time-to-time as a result of surviving cancer (twice). I settled on a fantasy world created as I mowed the lawn, cut & pruned some trees and pulled enough weeds to make my arms feel like Popeye after he's downed his spinach. (For those of you born in the last 30 years, you can find more on Popeye here).
I thought, "what if this whole cancer thing was an April Fool's joke?" (Yes, a very bad and cruel joke at that. But like I said, my sense of humor was at an all-time morbid high). What if I was just part of an experiment? I mean, head & neck cancer ("you mean, throat cancer or brain cancer, right?" Wrong)? Caused by the HPV virus? In Men? Yeah, it was quite unusual in 2007, as up until then conversation was centered around cervical cancer and the PAP with HPV test for young females. (My Daughter went through this, so I have some knowledge, thank you very much). What if they looked at me and said, "well, he looks like he can handle this. Let's try to kill him while we keep him alive." We'll put a feeding tube into his stomach––and make him wait for 4 weeks to figure how it works since we've NEVER seen this kind of feeding tube in a patient––cut our part of his tongue, scrape his larynx, remove his tonsils, yank 4 teeth out of his head, give him chemo right out of clinical trials and 7 weeks of radiation (35 total) WHILE we're giving him chemo every Friday for the next 13 weeks and tell him he has to miss work for the next 6 months. Oh, and just when he's finished with all that, we'll give him skin cancer, cut it out of two places (15 and 10 stitches, respectively, and two cold "burns" to remove two other danger spots) and tell him to stay out of the sun as well as out of work.
Yeah, that would've been a helluva April's Fools joke.
I'm not laughing.
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