Squamous cell news . . .
It happened on Austin Boulevard a dozen years ago . . .
I got shot and stabbed at West Sub. I.e., got frozen with a local & had my squamous cell carcinoma excised by expert “plastic man.” Felt a tug and twinge here and there, but was out on the street in an hour or so walking down Ontario. No problem.
My mother called it a "thing." Had a "thing" removed, she explained, unwilling to dignify it further. Having a college education, I must do so.
So I look it up and read in Wikipedia and found this:
Squamous cell carcinoma (here SCC) is the second most common cancer of the skin (after basal cell carcinoma but more common than melanoma). It usually occurs in areas exposed to the sun.
Like my upper right cheek, q.v. if you're in the vicinity. Quod vide, "have a look," for the (tragically) Latin-deprived. Among environmental risk factors for SCC of the skin, chronic sun exposure is the strongest.
Conundrum: Sunshine gives me Vitamin D, currently a hot vitamin, but also maybe SCC. Maybe Al Gore and his friends at East Anglia U. can figure that one out and come up with a climate-control solution.
Another thing: What if Doc couldn't get all my SCC? I had to wait a half hour for the lab to decide that, lying on my bed of comfort. What if I lived where single-payer rules, say Canada or UK? And though covered could not get care and had to wait till my cheek was exploding?
I would have to check in with my detachment philosophy. This would be my father's "A hundred years from now, nobody will know the difference," which he applied to minor irritations, followed with Ignatius Loyola's requiring 15 minutes to accept a hypothetical dissolution of his Society of Jesus.
That's right. The great man said it would take him 15 minutes, we are told. To accept the crushing loss of his life's work. It's what he preached, of course, variously known as detachment, indifference, abandonment (to Divine Providence), and other (Stoic) virtues.
— Posted 29 March 2010, edited minutes ago —
In a welcome comment, friend Penny thanked for the original post: “It's great to have peers share their real lives. Trouble of any sort can be isolating when all we hear is the good news.”
And thank you, Penny.